28 replies to this topic

[pinchevs]

I remember there was a discussion if it was all tore down.

Check this out:http://www.lovejoy.d...leife_main.html

[LittleChris]

Reinstating a thread that Moshe started 13 years ago with some footage going back 3 years !! 

 

Didn't realise that there was anything left at the Bocksberg Kurve

 

[chunder27]

I went down there a few years back.

 

You have such amazing acces to the whole perimeter road of the GP track, we just went down there in the van we were in and stopped right here.

What is staggering is ow close the trees are to the roadside, they pretty much line the road!  And to thnk they had bike races there!

 

Amazing if you get down there to have a look. The Germans are not as precious as our bumptious cretins over here. You can get all over the place coz hello they completely fenced off the GP track!  Awesome idea

[ozpata]

[Doug Nye]

The Sudschleife was a delight, left unchanged from its classical hedge-lined configuration long after the Nordschleife had been completely ph...modernised into its Ersatz Nurburgring form.  

 

I reported the 1968 EifelRennen Formula 2 race for 'Motoring News' and in retrospect I think it was one of the best things that I ever managed to write.  

 

Walking down beyond the Sudkehre junction where the Sudschleife left the Nordschleife, was almost to enter a different world, even then.  

 

As I recall the roadway swooped down into a forested dell between the hedgerows, and then began its sinuous course to loop back into the main circuit just a couple of hundred metres - if that - from where it had left it.  

 

Later I spent a week there with Phil Hill, doing Mercedes-Benz Museum car track tests for 'Road & Track' magazine.  I remember one corner on the outward leg where the tree cover nearly met across the track overhead. Behind the hedgerow on the infield there was a great place to have filmed the proceedings as we heard Phil approaching in the 1939 W154/163 GP car...  In the shade beneath the trees there was the most enormous nest of wood ants, teeming with hard-working life - and as the vibration of the V12 engine note came racketing through the woods, I swear the seething ants paused, raised their heads in unison...and wondered "What the hell is THAT?"...  Walt Disney, eat your heart out.

 

DCN

[Sharman]

How evocative a post Doug, as it is coming up to Christmas, it reminds me of years gone by, yarning over a pint or several in the pub on a frosty December night before being kicked out after hours to wend a merry way home on nearly deserted roads.
Thank you and a Happy Christmas.
John

Edited by Sharman, 13 December 2016 - 08:46.

[opplock]

A wonderful story Doug. I always liked DSJ's use of the term "emasculated" to describe circuits that had been modernised or ruined by chicanes.  

[chunder27]

I would urge anyone if they go to the Ring to just drive round the GP circuit perimeter, or take the road round to where the Sud is and have a wander, bits of it are still remarkably untouched in terms of the tree line and road width.

 

There isn't too much of it left, but you do get a good impression of what it must have been like.

 

I don't know how some of the older journo's have any passion for modern motorsport really, it must seem like such restricted, namby pamby sport in comparison.

[Duc-Man]

I would urge anyone if they go to the Ring to just drive round the GP circuit perimeter, or take the road round to where the Sud is and have a wander, bits of it are still remarkably untouched in terms of the tree line and road width.

 

There isn't too much of it left, but you do get a good impression of what it must have been like.

 

I don't know how some of the older journo's have any passion for modern motorsport really, it must seem like such restricted, namby pamby sport in comparison.

Actually most of the Südschleife is still there. The K72 between the Nürburgring and Müllenbach IS the old race track. The turn right at Müllenbach changed for the intersection there. And most of the track going back up to Galgenkopf is also still there. I would assume that less than half a mile of the original layout is gone forever.

[2F-001]

… And most of the track going back up to Galgenkopf is also still there...

Should that be Scharfer Kopf? Galgenkopf is the turn leading onto Döttinger Höhe (on the Nordschleife) isn't it?

[Duc-Man]

Should that be Scharfer Kopf? Galgenkopf is the turn leading onto Döttinger Höhe (on the Nordschleife) isn't it?

Sorry, my bad. I thought Scharfer Kopf but wrote Galgenkopf.

[Doug Nye]

Scharfer Kopf - "Sheep's Head"...yes?

 

DCN

[ReWind]

No, sharp head.

Sheep's head would be "Schafskopf".

[DogEarred]

Schafskopf mit scharfer Sauce.

 

That would almost be a kebab...

[Michael Ferner]

'Cept that Schafskopf is a card game!

[ReWind]

Eh... no.
That is Schafkopf.

[Vitesse2]

Courtesy of DCN, who wondered 'if they might be of interest' (!!! ), two pictures of Phil Hill testing the W154/163 on the Sudschleife 'circa 1978ish'. Strictly copyright © The GP Library.

 

 

 

It strikes me that Phil appears to be trying quite hard ...

[Tim Murray]

Tremendous! Thanks Doug (and Richard).

[Michael Ferner]

Eh... no.
That is Schafkopf.

Oh!

Around these parts, we call it Doppelkopf, anyway.

[Allan Lupton]

Oh!

Around these parts, we call it Doppelkopf, anyway.

That'd be after ein Bitburger or ten I suppose. . . .

[uechtel]

But Schafkopf is played with 32 cards and without all the bonus points and only (!) with German style cards so still it´s a different game.

[Doug Nye]

Courtesy of DCN, who wondered 'if they might be of interest' (!!! ), two pictures of Phil Hill testing the W154/163 on the Sudschleife 'circa 1978ish'. Strictly copyright © The GP Library.

...

It strikes me that Phil appears to be trying quite hard ...

 

Phil always tried quite hard - but on the occasions I rode with him it was evident that what would have been 9/10ths for a mortal was around 3/10ths for a driver of his experience, and innate ability. I have only ever ridden with one Grand Prix-winning driver - who had not been badly damaged subsequently - who didn't impress me in this way.  

 

DCN

Edited by Doug Nye, 16 December 2016 - 09:38.

[Michael Ferner]

That'd be after ein Bitburger or ten I suppose. . . .

You can't drink ein Bitburger, the same as you can't stand on one foot alone. The more feet, the better!

[Michael Ferner]

But Schafkopf is played with 32 cards and without all the bonus points and only (!) with German style cards so still it´s a different game.

Well, those pesky​ Barbarians ​Bavarians always need to do things differently, they can't just play Doppelkopf so they copy the game with some stupid extras.

[Rob Semmeling]

No, sharp head.

Sheep's head would be "Schafskopf".

 

From my Südschleife book:

 

Scharfer-Kopf

Named after the 628 metres high hill near the circuit. Someone can have a 'Scharfer Kopf' – meaning something like 'a quick mind' – but here 'Kopf' refers to a hilltop or peak. 'Scharfer' may loosely translate as 'steep', for example as in 'scharfer Anstieg', a steep rise, which is entirely appropriate – try walking up this section!

 

The feature about the W154 with Phil Hill appeared in the November 1978 issue of Road & Track.

 

The Südschleife continued to be used for hillclimbing until September 1979, incidentally.

[arttidesco]

From my Südschleife book:

 

Scharfer-Kopf

Named after the 628 metres high hill near the circuit. Someone can have a 'Scharfer Kopf' – meaning something like 'a quick mind' – but here 'Kopf' refers to a hilltop or peak. 'Scharfer' may loosely translate as 'steep', for example as in 'scharfer Anstieg', a steep rise, which is entirely appropriate – try walking up this section!

 

The feature about the W154 with Phil Hill appeared in the November 1978 issue of Road & Track.

 

The Südschleife continued to be used for hillclimbing until September 1979, incidentally.

 

In my less formally trained Deutchlish Scharfer Kopf would translate as sharp head or sharp mind where as a quick mind would be something more like Schneller Verstand/Geist, could it be the Scharfer Kopf has sharp edges like for extreme example the Matterhorn ? Would not a steep hill be a Steiler Kopf ?

[Spa65]

I seem to remember reading in the late 60's about a German female racing driver winning a race on this track. Not a Mickey Mouse series, but an F2 race. It was no more than a paragraph in one of the weekly or monthly car mags of the time.

Does this ring a bell with anyone? Who was she, and what was her story?

[Tim Murray]

I suspect you might be thinking of Hannelore Werner, who finished second in a non-championship F2 race on the Nürburgring Nordschleife in August 1970:

http://www.formula2.net/F270_14.htm

Although the race was not that well supported (the F1 drivers were competing in the clashing German GP at Hockenheim) it was an impressive performance, and there was talk of her moving into F1 with backing from Eifelland Caravans (whose boss she later married) but it never came to anything.

Here's her biography on Speedqueens:

http://speedqueens.b...werner.html?m=1

[Duc-Man]

I took the map ozpata posted and copied the still existing part from that into a screenshot from google maps.