The Nurburgring Experience:
How To Tour Germany At High-Speed

An hour’s drive up the A8 from Ulm and we were parked in the immaculate underground lot at the Porsche Museum. This rally prepped 911 just chilling in the lot was certainly a sign of things to come.

Once you pay your entry fee and start the tour, the wow factor is completely off the charts. I’m not going to go into any great detail here because there’s just too much to cover, so instead here’s a few pics of my favorite cars on display. If you ever find yourself in the Stuttgart area, make a visit here a priority. Even if you’re not a Porschephile, you’ll be glad you did.

It’s also worth popping across the street from the museum to the the Porsche dealership. I’m not sure if it’s affiliated with the museum, but the cars in the showroom and shop were pretty special too, especially this matte green/gray Carrera GT. Just wow.

Back in Frankfurt, it was time to prep Jon’s STI for a few days at the Nurburgring. Since we’re not the type of guys to show up empty-handed, we brought along some Hawk brake pads and had Nitto ship over a fresh set of NT05 tires. If we were going to beat on Jon’s car, we figured this was the least we could do as thanks.

Stephen brought a bunch of other goodies for the STI, which he installed at the “Tuning Dungeon” on the Wiesbaden military base. It was pretty cool getting to check out life on the base while we were there, and I especially liked the artwork on the Dungeon’s bathroom wall.

We finished up early at the Dungeon, and it just so happened that there was public lapping at the Hockenheimring in the evening, so we headed in that direction while Stephen street tuned the STI’s ECU. He installed a wideband 02 sensor to monitor air/fuel ratio and we installed some stickers for a little extra horsepower.

We were hoping to rip some laps in the Scooby, but Stephen wasn’t happy with the tune yet, so instead we took the Evo out (Nissan stated no track action for the Z, which meant it stayed in the paddock here and at the Nurburgring). There was just no way we were going to miss the chance to lap on a F1 circuit!

If memory serves, the cost was about €30 per 20-minute lapping session during these open Hockenheim evenings, where groups alternate between motorbikes and cars. We arrived just in time to watch the motorbike group go out, and, well, it was complete and utter madness. There must have been at least 100 bikes out there, and the leaders were going at it like it was a MotoGP qualifier.