Only unusual thing is the Ring taxi involvement. Never heard of one crashing before.

 

Only difference is that over here, cnuty cnutcils put up signs bragging about it on our equivalents;

Only 57 this year on the B656 - bikers must try harder.

 

Crashes to this scale and with the taxi used to be rarer than they are. The ring taxi is being provided by a new firm this year and there's been a few complaints about the so-called professional drivers.

The ring management spent a lot of money on nuro-disney that isn't attracting anywhere near the visitor figures they anticipated. But they refuse to spend money on TF despite it being a big cash-cow. Track day organisers are required to spend 5k euros on a "safety" package of marshalls etc, but the level of marshalling (ie none) is much much less for TF. There was a safety video playing at the ticket office, but this has been replaced by video adverts.

There's serious trouble there, but no-one appears to be doing anything about it.

 

When have you heard of another Ring taxi having a major off, Mark?

 

The Sabine era M5 taxi took out a bike up kesselchen (fast uphill bit). This was one of a spate of incidents that led to orders coming from on-high to make them stick to 8:30 laps.

Overtaking is on the left ONLY. With this in mind, watch the new M3 taxi in the clip below

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CeZq_...layer_embedded

 

Not good, looks like a racing driver that's forgotten where he is

 

Hmmm, not bon!

 

Idiot!

I will do a TF just for the experience of it, but i'm with MB that a track day would be lots better by means of removing idiots like those in the video.

 

I've done a couple, but nearly got wiped out in the Exige by someone undertaking me in a eurobox whilst out of control. That was enough for me. You can't see people coming in car like that and it's bloody dangerous. Some of these guys know the track and have no patience for those who don't.

Doing it on a trackday is a complete joy. Clearly expensive, but given the price of getting there, price of Ring laps these days, and lack of enjoyment due to tossers, i'd rather pay the extra...

 

Das ist nicht gut!

The insurance situation is why I'd probably not do a TF trip again. That accident could well have happened on a trackday, and there's always some idiots on a trackday. The dangers of Touristenfahrten are exaggerated by those prone to hysteria; I'm really not being facetious when I say I've felt less safe driving the A34 everyday than I ever have on the Nordschleife, and just like on the road you need to be looking out for the idiots and giving them a wide berth.

You couldn't pay me enough to ride a bike on the TF day though.