Matt Bubbers driving the Nürburgring Nordschleife as part of the BMW M Experience.Supplied
On a crisp and mercifully sunny two days in early October, a group of strangers met in rural Germany to drive the most difficult and dangerous racetrack in the world: the Nürburgring Nordschleife, also known as the ‘Ring, or Green Hell. They came from Canada, the U.S., Sweden, Japan, Switzerland and elsewhere to this place that has become a Mecca for people who like cars, hallowed ground for speed demons and a place where egos are routinely crushed against cold metal guardrails.
Of the roughly 40 cars assembled for the BMW M Experience at the Nordschleife, a half dozen or so crashed over the course of these two days. The only injuries were pride and sheet metal.
Matt Bubbers driving the Nürburgring Nordschleife as part of the BMW M Experience.Supplied
For their 4,590 euros (almost $7,500), participants get two nights in a hotel, meals, use of the Nordschleife and BMW’s 523-horsepower, rear-wheel drive M4 Competition to thrash on the circuit. (After two days, each car needs a fresh set of Michelins.) The program runs several times per year and, despite the high price and inherent risk, it often sells out.
The (not so) secret weapon to building the best car? The Nordschleife
This international group of strangers – like a United Nations of gearheads – were paired with instructors. Nobody in our Green Group had driven the Nordschleife before (hence the “green,” presumably), apart from a jovial Swede named Christer Royard, who belongs to a club called the RingRunners of Sweden. (There are roughly 150 members.) He drove here from the small seaside city of Vastervik with his own BMW M4 CSL in tow so he could stay a few extra days and get in more laps in later when the track opened back up to the public.
Also in the Green Group was a friendly Hungarian, an impeccably well-mannered father and daughter from Ireland, some friends from Canada and the U.S., and Jeff Francis from California who runs The Speed Journal, a website about cars. There was also this writer from Toronto for whom driving the ‘Ring is a nervous/exciting bucket-list experience he may never get to do again.
“It takes 100 laps just to know where you’re going,” Ricardo Sanchez warned us over dinner the night before our first day on the track.
The Green Group's teacher for the Nordschleife, racing driver and BMW M instructor Ricardo Sanchez, who got the whole group up to speed very quickly.Matt Bubbers/The Globe and Mail
Sanchez talks us through Brunnchen, a corner so infamous for big crashes it has become known as YouTube corner.Matt Bubbers/The Globe and Mail
The 35 year-old racing driver from Mexico and part-time BMW driving instructor was our teacher, responsible for guiding us around the track.
It takes a lifetime to get really good at driving fast on the Nordschleife, Sanchez said, which is surely what keeps so many drivers coming back to this dangerous old circuit. It’s been 100 years since construction of the track began, and it’s arguably more popular than ever, thanks in part to Top Gear’s Sabine Schmitz episode and YouTubers such as Misha Charoudin, but mainly because of the circuit itself.
Days before we arrived at the ‘Ring, Max Verstappen, the four-time Formula 1 champion, climbed down from the ivory tower of F1 to slum it in a GT3 racecar because he’s like us; he just wanted to drive the ‘Ring.
Matt Bubbers driving the Nürburgring Nordschleife as part of the BMW M Experience.Supplied
With 73 corners, the 20-kilometre long Nordschleife is to other racetracks what Mount Everest is to Blue Mountain. There’s little to no run-off area. Put a wheel off the track and you’re more than likely going into barriers are high speed.
Before flying to Germany, I asked for advice from Joerg Bergmeister who drove his first laps here illegally when he was 13. The Nürburgring 24-hour race-winner and ‘Ring record holder said: “It’s just the ultimate track. I mean, there’s nothing like it. It’s the ultimate challenge for a driver,” he explained. “It’s always a gamble, how much risk you’re willing to take, and obviously a question of talent as well, how close can you go to the limit and get away with it.”
The tight and tricky downhill left at Wehrseifen.Matt Bubbers/The Globe and Mail
The inside curb at Wehrseifen.Matt Bubbers/The Globe and Mail
Following Bergmeister’s advice, I’d been practicing the track in video games beforehand, but all my virtual crashes didn’t exactly instill confidence.
Blame Bergmeister or jet lag or both but I didn’t sleep much the night before. At least the weather was perfect.
“Welcome to the Nordschleife” Sanchez called out over the radio to the Green Group as we drive through the famous gate to enter the track.
The first thing you see is an ambulance, parked like one final warning to drivers.
This gate leads out onto the track, an ambulance parked on the right.Matt Bubbers/The Globe and Mail
Sanchez drove in front and we follow him around in a line, like little ducklings after their mother.
“After the crest, touch the brake, off the brake, back to the power to put some weight on the back, and now we brake hard brake hard, behind me behind me, go in go in go in,” he calls out in a punctuation-free stream of conscious, talking his ducklings over a crest before another crest into the treacherous left at Schwedenkreuz.
Later we’d take that first crest at more than 220 kilometres an hour, but for this run we’re just learning whether the corners go left or right.
Kottenborn leading to a pair of crests before the slightly terrifying Schwedenkreuz corner.Matt Bubbers/The Globe and Mail
Fog through the Adenauer Forest section and toward the bridge at Breidscheid gives the Nordschleife a dream-like feel in the early morning. Colourful and ever-changing graffiti covers much of the track surface, making the place feel alive. As the sun rose it burst over the trees that line the circuit and lit up the fall leaves in incandescent ambers and yellows.
Early morning fog in the run up to Breidscheid corner on our first run of the first day.Matt Bubbers/The Globe and Mail
Matt Bubbers driving the Nürburgring Nordschleife as part of the BMW M Experience.Supplied
Sanchez continued narrating: “Then Niki Lauda corner, which is named after him, where his famous accident happened.”
Lauda’s horrific near-fatal crash at this corner during the 1976 German Grand Prix is what finally put an end to F1 racing at the Nordschleife; it was simply too dangerous.
“High speed, to the left, no braking” Sanchez says through Lauda-Links, driving with one hand on the steering wheel and the other holding a radio. “And then Bergwerk, tricky corner, braking in the middle toward the outside and then we start going down, looking for grip, compression, back on the power and open the wheel.”
The BMW M4’s neutral balance, predictability and immense traction out of corners was impressive, but not nearly as much as its ability to complete lap after punishing lap of the Nordschleife without seeming to break a sweat.
At Pflanzgarten 2, Sanchez warned us, “If you don’t land properly you go straight into the inside wall at 200 kilometres an hour. We had an accident there yesterday.” It’s a fast left kink with a sharp crown in the pavement that drops away so suddenly cars can catch air. It feels like driving off a cliff.
The very fast downhill at Fuchsrohre (or Foxhole) leads to a sharp compression and steep uphill that subjects both car and driver to extreme forces.Matt Bubbers/The Globe and Mail
The famous banked corner at Karussell.Matt Bubbers/The Globe and Mail
The whole track is narrower with more elevation change and steeper cambers than I’d imagined from video games and YouTube. It’s less like a racetrack and more like the ultimate mountain road. As such, it’s all too easy to get lost and forget which turn you’re barrelling toward at triple-digit speed. (Thankfully, as it turned out, the brief refresher laps on Forza Motorsport beforehand seemed to unlock vague memories of the track still buried deep in my brain from all the time spent driving the Nordschleife as a kid on the family computer. So, that wasn’t a total waste of time after all.)
All members of Green Group, I’m proud to report, managed to keep our cars away from the guardrails, but we were mentally beat after day one.
At dinner that evening, the father from Ireland said some people back home might think he’s reckless for letting his daughter do this. But he thinks it’ll ultimately help her be a better, safer driver. What she likes about it, she said, is that driving here allows her to switch off and focus on just this one thing.
Sanchez calls it flow. When your car is good – when it’s not understeering and you’re fighting it, or oversteering and you can’t trust it, he explained – you get into this unconscious zone. “You don’t realize until you get out of the car, and it’s like ‘wow.’ You stop looking at the [lap times] and just drive,” he said.
I’m surprised to see Dirk Haecker at dinner. As vice-president of engineering at M division, he’s the man ultimately responsible for developing all of BMW’s high-performance cars.
“To drive with a very precise car on the Nürburgring is more like playing a musical instrument […] It’s to come into a flow, to come with a feeling,” he said. Joy doesn’t come from maximum speed or even lap times. Haecker likes to come to this event to spend time with customers; he’s been teaching and testing cars at the ‘Ring for 30 years and is still as infatuated with the circuit as ever.
In the morning, the Green Group got up and did it all again except faster, putting together more full laps at speed, enjoying what was, for this writer, an unforgettable and life-affirming experience, chasing a string of cars into the afternoon sun.
Matt Bubbers driving the Nürburgring Nordschleife as part of the BMW M Experience.Supplied
The writer was a guest of the automaker. Content was not subject to approval.