Nurburgring Damage!!!

[NurburgRob]

Hi,

Just got back from a long weekend at the Nurburgring, it was great!!! :yes

We stayed at this place //www.ringhaus.com

If you go to the ring, stay here.  Great hotel, great people, cheap but everythinig you want and only 500 yards from the entrance. :Thumbs-up

Two of the guys there even spent three hours bashing out the front of my bros rex so he could race the next day, and all for a couple of pints. :guinness

I\'ll be back there next year, no question.

Anyway, back to business.  I was coming into the left hander at Adenau Bridge at about 60mph when a Subaru understeered straight into the wall infront of me! I steered slightly left to avoid a possible collision and spun the rex 90 degrees, I steered into it and kept it sideways as the speed dropped off.  Me and my mate were shouting NO, NO, NO but she went up the curb and kissed the inside barrier.

The drivers side front hit the barrier and pushed in the sidelight, pushed my fog light down and took most of the paint off my front bumper.

So, called the bank today, they\'ll lend me another £2000 whoopeee!

So I need a new front bumper and everything aligned as the bonnet has moved over a little and the headlight is slightly lower than it should be.  I don\'t know the extent of the damage underneath the bumper, but fingers crossed it\'ll all bang back into shape.

Any recommendations for a new front bumper?  but most importantly, can anyone recommend a bodyshop in the midlands area?

Thanks, come with us next year, there\'s a shortage of Rex\'s at the Ring.

Rob

P.S. - My Bro (Mart160+) hit the barrier at 90mph but he\'ll tell you all about that!!!

[Iain C]

ooops..At least your both ok.
I went in the clio last year. Its deffo an experience!
Hope you get the car all sorted!

[NurburgRob]

Thanks Iain.

I know things never go back to what they were, I\'m just worried I\'ll not get the front aligned properly ever again.

I\'ll have to take the front bumper off and have a good look at the damage.

Roll cages and harnesses next year without question.  It\'s so fast in a Rex, if you crash, you\'re in trouble.  I did a 9:15 with a passenger, the air con on and traffic.  Sub 9 minutes is no problem, next year I want an 8:30!!!

[AtomicRex]

first outing this year we knocked out an 8:23 in the rex.  It is a dangerous place, but fitting a full roll cage and harnesses makes you feel a little better.

Ive seen enough things out there in the last 7 years to scare the hardened of drivers, and although I wont use a bike around there anymore im happy to play in the car

Don\'t chase times....there really isn\'t any point...Clarkson has a lot to answer to for this!  Learn the place, learn the lines, and get the feeling you\'ve got a smooth lap.  Some of the best laps I have done have felt the slowest.

Once you\'ve a couple of hundred laps under your belt then start having a look at bringing the times down.  The other thing to do is go out with someone who knows the place, then you can follow!

Good point about the crashing....take a look over the sides of the Armco though, those trees you can see are the tops, and they are old pine trees!!!!

Good luck at fixing the rex...Im sure it will fix!

What did you do about the Armco you hit??? Did they charge you?  One guy when I was there in May took out almost 200m of armco......his insurance company must have wept when they saw the bill

[NurburgRob]

I only kissed the armco so the Marshalls had a quick look and said no business here, that was a relief!!!

My bro took out quite a bit of armco and they charged him over 1500 Euros

This was my second year and I know the circuit quite well.  The Rex is standard apart from a K&N (Thanks Clive (SHY Auto)) and Hawk pads all round.

I wouldn\'t suggest following someone but have a co-pilot who knows the circuit instead.  My 9:15 seemed more like a 9:45 to me so there is plenty of room for improvement.

We never time laps, never.  We time the recording we made of the digicam when we get back to the hotel later.

The Rex should fix up ok, I don\'t want to remove the bumper and see all this squashed stuff, that\'s all.

[ro284]

This was my second year and I know the circuit quite well. The Rex is standard apart from a K&N (Thanks Clive (SHY Auto)) and Hawk pads all round.[/QUOTE)
Glad you two ok. hope the RX is fixable, How do you find the Hawk pads? Which ones are they please?
cheers Bob

[maximtaylor]

Going off at the \'Ring is something that\'ll happen to me eventually for sure. Shame that your \'off\' was the consequence of a scooby driver:(

What is it with scooby drivers always crashing?

Anyway, back for my Ring fix in two weeks and one day, not that i\'m counting

[Mart160plus]

What a weekend :driving

It was a bit early in the day and I should have been easing myself into it but the lap felt so good :cool , after having the laser alignment done the day before the car was surfing round the corners on all four wheels, perfect.

We came out of Karrussel, accelerating hard, and approached the left hand apex to Hohe Acht at about a ton. On turning left the car didn\'t sit to the right as it had done on previous left handers, it immediately went left and we clipped the apex kerb/rumblestrip (well, Ralph Schumacher did it in Monaco...). This just dragged us into the barrier on the left, straight away, no time for anything but a \'fuh\' on the audio we got of the lap (cameras were spotted when we started so no pictures of this lap).

Must\'ve hit getting on for 70 or 80mph, these Rexs with their paper-thin wings are bloody sturdy, I can tell you ! Bounced the front left off the barrier, rear left banged as well (revealing some filler to my disgust!), then span into the road. My friend and I (he must\'ve had a great view of the whole event) pulled the wing out and we trundled back to the pits.
1560 Euros for the 24 metres of armco (12 metres two barriers high) plus all the overheads. We saw their repair on the last day and I\'m sure they\'ve only replaced half of what I paid for !!


Racing team based at the hotel started to patch the car up for me with cable ties until I told them I wanted to go back on the Ring the next day. They spent a good 2 hours and did a great job. Didn\'t venture onto the lap on the last day though as I think the shock is damaged.

Now comes the fun part. Philosophising after such a crash makes you think what to do with the car next, so with all the advice you wonderful people I hope will lend me, I\'d like to strip my car to it\'s bare essentials, get a nose fabricated that is fibreglass all the way to the A-pillars (hinged at the front), get a fibreglass boot, semi cut slicks and use it for not much else than track days now  :chat ! Going to get an ally trailer built as well and drag it to the Ring next year.

Damaged car = modification opportunity  :Giggle

:Thumbsup!

[maximtaylor]

Now comes the fun part. Philosophising after such a crash makes you think what to do with the car next, so with all the advice you wonderful people I hope will lend me, I\'d like to strip my car to it\'s bare essentials, get a nose fabricated that is fibreglass all the way to the A-pillars (hinged at the front), get a fibreglass boot, semi cut slicks and use it for not much else than track days now  :chat ! Going to get an ally trailer built as well and drag it to the Ring next year.

Damaged car = modification opportunity  :Giggle

:Thumbsup!

Thats the spirit Doing something similar myself!

[NurburgRob]

It\'s nice to talk about it, I haven\'t stopped yet!

Thinking of getting a C-West N1 type 2 front bumper with undertray.

I can only find two companies in the UK selling original kits for Rexs, does anyone know of any such companies?

Previous experience of a bodyshop around East Anglia would be good too.

Cheers guys, see you at JAE
Rob

[AtomicRex]

Dragging it out to any track day is in my eyes a must!  Sorry to hear of your accident, I lost it at Kesselchen III the quick left hander after the triple apex left after Bergwerk.  I only touched the Armco and my bumper exploded!! But cable ties are great  along with the compulsory gaffa tape!!!

Well done for getting it back out, no point in stopping for a bit of body damage heh???

Good luck on the mods....try and fit a cage...you will feel a lot happier on the Ring!