The Cars of the Nurburgring Touristenfahrten

I am still sorting through my video, data, and photos from my Nurburgring trip so there will be several posts to follow. I wanted to start off with a collection of photos taken by my brother, Matt, from various corners around the famed Nordschleife that highlight the amazing mix of 4-wheel and 2-wheel machinery that rip around the Touristenhfahrten sessions. These photos are all from the Sunday full day session. The full day weekend Tourist sessions are generally the busiest with a wide range of horsepower and monetary investment showcased.

Ferrari 458 On track

Modded Audi R8 with crazy wheels

Trackday toy action - KTM X-Bow

These BMW Safety Cars made frequent appearances

Street Legal Radical mixing it up

Two racecars putting down laps

Of the more expensive hypercar breed...Lamborghini Aventador

The famed BMW Ring Taxi leading another Bimmer

Ferrari F430 shredding Brunchen

GODZILLA

The Rent4Ring Artega GT rolling through Brunchen

A look at the traffic....R8, Vette, and bikes giving each other some room

A Nice Aston Martin Through Brunchen

One of the craziest track attack vehicles we saw

One of the Ring Kings....the Corvette ZR1

Photo Credit: Matt Ogburn.....thanks for the great photos!

GT Academy - Movin' Up, Still a Ways to Go

US GT Academy Rankings

I picked up about 1.4s over the past few days to move up to 538th in the USA out of about 25K sim drivers. This puts me 5,463rd in the World out of over 206K entries. I am about 2.5s off of the where the cutoff for the National Finals will be....so there is still plenty of pace to be had. Trying to whittle down the time on the same track with the same car can be very, very frustrating, but seeing where you stack up with over 200,000 people across the Globe is pretty cool. My goal was to be in the Top 1,000 in the US, so hopefully I can keep getting better and give myself a shot at the National Finals.

GT Academy 2013 - Givin' it a whirl

GT Academy 2013 started officially on July 2nd and ends July 28th. I decided to give it a go and see how well I stack up against the fastest sim racers in the US. Since I started yesterday, I have put a few hours in and am in 1,231st place in the US out of over 22,000 entrants. I have lots to learn about how to be quick in Gran Turismo, but plenty of time to try and get it done. Making it to the National Finals (top 31) is a long-shot, but I have no chance if I don't try.

As you can see, there is quite a bit of time to make up. The fastest guys are putting down unbelievable times, but there replay videos and ghosts are available to everybody in the competition so there is at least a chance to learn from them. 

My Playstation handle is YawMomentRacing (shocker, I know...) and the live updating results can be viewed here: http://www.gran-turismo.com/us/academy/2013/rankings/

VW Scirocco Hot Lap at the 'Ring

Posting this from Strasbourg, France....we have quick internet at the hotel.

Here is my fastest lap from the 'Ring:

I'll post more video and a full recap when I get back stateside, but overall it was an amazing experience. Nurburg and Adenau are beautiful towns and as expected, the track is immense. The Touristenfahrten has such a different feel to any motorsport event I have ever participated in. Especially on the Monday evening session, it was just hardcore tracktards having fun...and it was cool to be a part of. 

Bonne nuit, gute nacht, good night.