A toll you won't mind paying...
The rest of the previous evening had been spent (by me) whining about how we had to do it, how it just didn't make sense for us to be this close and not get out on the track - so, the next morning we're out at 8:30 headed back to the Nordschleife. We stop in Adenau on the way, collecting orange juice and some pastries. Minor culture-clash note: the concept of take-out coffee in the American idiom just doesn't exist in much of Germany (or, it appears, France) - coffee is something you sit down and drink in the shop.
The parking lot at start/finish has a small operations building with ticket machines and a couple guys watching TV monitors. That's it - not even a track map. DM17 for one lap, DM68 for 5, packages of 12 and 50 are also available. I dump in my DM for 5 laps.
All the baggage is back at the hotel, fortunately, so I settle for moving the floor mats and some of the other traveling debris to the back seat footwells. Eva has the camera out, and we're at the gate. Put the ticket into the machine just like a tollbooth, and we're off. A guy in a Ferrari is cinching up his belts just past the gates so we go around, but within 1/2 mile he's behind me and I signal him past. The course is damp, but not evenly: the front section near the ticket booths much wetter than the back where some spots are nearly dry.
This course is all elevation change: uphill straights with blind crests, leading into downhill turns; downhill straights leading into uphill turns that are a lot faster than I could ever work up nerve for. Absolutely beautiful at touring pace, loads of fun when moving a little faster, but it's easy to understand where the nickname the Green Hell came from: 130-odd turns, kinks, and squiggles per lap, minimal runoff areas through much of it, and surrounded by trees throughout. There's not much in the way of braking markers, nor is there an obvious line laid down on the track, so the best I can do is aim for the freshly painted spots on the berms.
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With the partly-damp pavement I wasn't surprised to get into the ABS occasionally. The Dynamic Stability Control came into play a few times as well, in at least one case keeping us on the track when I might not have otherwise been able to do so.
On our second lap out, we came across a young couple in an older Golf disabled by the side of the road. It proves to be a broken alternator belt, so back at the paddock I trot over to the operations booth to let them know what's up. One of the guys inside trots off to an E34 Touring and heads out to tow the Golf in.
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Every lap or two we stop in the paddock/parking lot for a few minutes and munch breakfast; the cherry streusel from the Adenau bakery is almost worth another trip in itself. Eva decides after four laps to get out and wait for me to do the last lap alone. Not that I'm going to push much harder without her; you don't learn this track in four laps and my line could best be considered an approximation. Still, I'm pulling away from whatever traffic I come across, so if this is as good as it gets for now I'm content.
Back in the parking lot we tuck the floormats back into the front footwells, rearrange the interior, and head back down toward the GP track. It's been not only fun, but also tremendously educational - I learned more about DSC in the first two wet laps than I'd have learned in six months on the street. It can be a tremendous safety factor, particularly if you catch an unexpected wet patch at turn-in to a corner - I'd have been even more timid than I was without it. At the same time, though, it doesn't let you build up any slip angle at the rear wheels exiting corners, and the traction- control component is intrusive and limiting as all hell - definitely no substitute for a good limited-slip diff. I'll have to see whether Quaife catalogs something for the E39.
As we reach the new circuit parking lot it starts to pour rain. We park and head briskly for the track museum, which is packaged into a series of buildings connected with enclosed ramps. Each area appears to have a different corporate sponsor - Mercedes-Benz covers most of the first building with a sizeable display of interesting historical Benz products including an ex-Hakkinen McLaren GP car as the center of attention. Continental and Bilstein are heavily represented in the next building; the third is BMW's and is largely an exhibit of current production auto and bike models, not wildly exciting except that I got to see five-foot-two Eva on an R1100GS.
It's about 3PM by the time we get back to Cologne, we're both a little worn at this point - nap time. We spend a little more time wandering around later, end up consuming various nondescript fast food and discussing plans for the morning. We'd originally intended to hand the car over to Harms in Cologne, but that means we have to get to the agent's office at 9AM to stand a chance of catching the 11AM Paris train; best case we check into the hotel around 5PM and the day's pretty much gone.