I had never heard of the Nurburgring Nordschleife (North loop) until I started driving computer sims. That’s not unusual for a racetrack in Germany but this is a pretty notorious racetrack. At most tracks there are a handful of corners to learn and the job of finding the braking and turn in points, the maximum speed that can be carried through the turns, and finding the driving line itself almost seems doable. In contrast the Nordschleife is 20.8 km long with 73 corners and feels like a cross between all those twisty mountain roads in car commercials and a treacherous rally circuit.
Construction on the ring was completed in 1927 and the German F1 Grand Prix was hosted there for several years until 1976 when the drivers declared the circuit too dangerous to drive. I’ve found some old videos on YouTube to provide a sense of the place. Be warned, there is some serious late ’60s/early ’70s camp in the following clips.
Jackie Stewart describes the Nordschleife
After watching the introduction to the previous video by François Cevert I realized I wasn’t approaching this project with the right attitude. Subsequently, I have sought out some of my ’70s polyester shirts and have taken to waltzing around the house with my top 4 buttons undone. As I’m older now, of course, there is more waxing and shaping required to achieve the aerodynamic clarity I need and this preparation can cut into my practice time. Some days, it’s all I can do to get into the cockpit at all in the time available to me. Also the champagne has a tendency to gum up the keyboard and the Gitanes stink up the house fearfully but I feel one must achieve the lesser in order to contemplate achieving the greater.
The following is a summary of the fastest recorded lap by Stefan Bellof:
Nowadays the track is mostly used for closed circuit testing by some auto makers and some lesser racing series. The public is allowed to drive on the ring as a toll road and from the videos on YouTube it would appear that a healthy industry caters to tourists wishing to take their own car or bike onto the ring. Here is one of several sites providing information for potential visitors:
Nordschleife Visitor Information
with the History, Warning, Safety, Laptimes, and Fluid Leaks sections all worth a (somewhat sobering) read. From the Laptimes section:
“Third, if you do have a serious crash while timing a lap, the police report will include details of any stop-watches, dash-timers, etc, they find. Your insurer will then invoke the ‘time-trial’ exclusion that is standard in every road policy, and you will find yourself personally liable for the GT3 you hit or the biker you injured.“
Yeesh. Since you can’t get insurance if you say you’re driving on the ring, since your insurance company would be unlikely to believe you if you said that you accidentally wound up there, since your health care wouldn’t cover your expenses if you had an accident there, and since you’d be treated like a criminal if you were found with a stopwatch under the seat after your rollover it seems that a computer simulation is the only sane way for mortals to experience this track. No need to worry about insurance, tires, fluids, or bodily harm. Rain only occurs when the options setting is on and laps are always run when the sun is high in the sky.
Why seven minutes flat? The following video shows an interesting comparison between real life driver Hans-Joachim Stuck on the track and a driver in GTR-Evolution matching his progress turn for turn. Note the impressive similarity between the in-game track model and the real track. Also note the somewhat intrusive in-game advertising lining the track
Video comparison of live lap with GTR-Evolution
I don’t drive exactly the same track that they do in the video; the track in the video is the full north loop plus the new Nurburgring. I’ve measured the time for the portion which strictly the north loop at roughly 6:57. So I expect 7:00 will be a very hard target to meet and perfect for having something on the horizon to strive for.
One problem with racing simulations is that the more realistic they become, the more the user has to resemble a real race driver in their performance in order to obtain similar times. Modern race car drivers are actually extremely fit with some recent F1 drivers competing reasonably in world class triathlon events. Those who know Helmut Pudding know an athlete not of this category, so some of the current driving simulations taken without driver aid are really too frustrating to be enjoyable. At the same time the tools available to aspiring racers are also impressive. Over the next few articles I hope to show just how deep the rabbit hole goes.
This week my best time is a somewhat pokey-ish 7:42.653. There are still vast portions of the track that are blanks to me and hardly a lap goes by without a serious case of guardrail guidance so I’m confident this will improve. Oh yes, the car at the top of the article is the BMW M3 GTR racecar I’ll be driving in-game. It’s difficult to find a list price on something like this due to the way these cars get certified for their racing categories, but the 2001 street version of the car was 250.000€ or $US225,000 with a race ready version being worth far more.
This is really interesting to me, Helmut, given that racing games are not something I have any experience with. I especially enjoyed the track-to-game comparison video… and too right about the advertising. I recognize the value of in-game ads for developers, but in a game like this, one that’s almost historical, where accuracy is so key, it’s quite off-putting.
Or pudding. Either way. Steerpike Pudding would have similar problems with this track. I certainly got a kick out of the fact that they call it “The Green Hell!”
The developers released a statement where they mentioned having to remove some detail from the track in order to fit it into memory.
I think that was supposed to indicate how big the modeled environment is, but it’s hard to feel the appropriate amazement when that lost budget is spent on billboards. Shadow details are also removed from this track. I don’t notice the content while I’m driving, it’s just that they put them at the end of long straights where they act as a reminder that a hairy corner is coming up.
Both of those videos illustrate a remarkable calm, compared to me at the very least. They make it look far easier than it feels. The YouTube videos don’t present quite the same feeling of speed as sitting in front of a nice widescreen monitor. There are other cars in the practice session if you’re wondering about overtaking, but on this track you rarely encounter anyone due to its size.
Great writeup. I too have gotten hooked on the Nordschleife! I’d never heard of it before experiencing it in Forza Motorsport 2 for the first time a few months ago.
You were at 7:42 here? Wow. I just did a run in that same M3 and clocked 8:28 (although that included one spinout and two undesired instances of guardrail guidance). I give the track a try a few times per week, although I’ve been using a different car each time. I think just for fun, I’m going to keep trying the M3 to see how close I match your progress.
What driving aids options are you using? I’ve got all aids turned off aside from automatic clutch – maybe I’m making too hard on myself.
Hey a friend! You should hang out here more often. It gets kinda lonely with only the smarty pants reviewers to hang out with.
Is that time on the Nordschleife and not the Nurburgring? I prefer the nature of the old track to the mixture of the old and new on the Nurburgring. You also have to be careful comparing times between the games. GTR-Evolution is quite different from GTR-2 (as far as physics and track layout are concerned), and I’m sure Forza on the console is quite different yet again so be sure to compare apples to apples.
On your earlier comment about being taken by surprise by how much you enjoyed the game, I agree fully. There’s something about trying to achieve a great lap that is endlessly absorbing. You can work a track and car for weeks only to go somewhere else and do it all over again. Then you can return to your first track/car and find yourself effortlessly faster than during your first visit.
I too am running without aids with the exception of automatic clutch. I have a wheel with a six slot shifter and clutch, but have deferred learning how to use this until I can find a spot to set it up properly.
I had meant to provide a replay file and a MoTeC log file with the columns… I haven’t done that to this point, but I’m certainly willing if you’re interested. If you haven’t heard of MoTeC, well, the rabbit hole just got a whole lot deeper.