1 November: Our Thrilling Farewell to the Nürburgring

November 1^st (All Saints’ Day) is a national holiday in Germany, and ever since our disastrous visit to the Nürburgring in October, we had been eyeing this holy day as potentially our last opportunity to return to the Ring before winter set in. (Well, disastrous might be a bit too strong, since we didn’t crash the car or anything, but it was a terribly disappointing way to end our string of otherwise-successful trips to the track, and John was determined to tally up a few more laps.) Fortunately our fearless Ringmeister Jürgen was able to get away for the day as well, so the three of us met up at the Grüne Hölle one more time on this damp, gray Thursday morning. This time Jürgen came in his old Honda hatchback with his 7-year-old son Timo in tow. Yes, Timo was going out on the Ring today! (In his car seat in the back seat with a helmet on, of course.) The first thing we noticed when we arrived was that the parking lot was about half as full as usual and there were hardly any motorcycles: good sign. Jürgen explained that many motorcyclists in Germany have seasonal licenses that expire on October 31^st, so our decision to come today was quite fortuitous.

Suffice it to say that the day turned out just about perfectly. John began his first lap following Jürgen, who quickly got away from us. Yes, you read right, Jürgen tore off in his crappy Honda. At one point I could swear that one of his rear wheels came off the ground. Over the course of the day, I put in three solid laps and John did five, putting his lifetime Ring total at 21 laps and mine at 20 (he had to have more than me, you see). Traffic was minimal and accidents were few. The clouds didn’t lift much over the course of the day, but the road stayed dry. I had an annoying exchange with an old seafoam green Opel whose driver apparently didn’t like being passed. I passed him, he passed me, and I passed him again. Some folks just don’t know when they’re beaten. John had one very exciting lap in which he chased down a silver BMW Z4. The BMW driver was obviously new to the track and kept taking a bad line, so even though his car was much faster than ours, John had a good chance at overtaking him. Unfortunately this meant that every time John got close to passing him, the BMW did something stupid (there’s nothing more dangerous on the Nürburgring than an inexperienced driver with a big ego in a fast car). I kept telling John not to follow too closely, because I was terrified that the BMW would make a catastrophic mistake and we would get tangled up in the mess. Finally John’s patience paid off and we successfully passed the Z4 and were able to gain some considerable ground ahead of him by the end of the lap. A Ring photographer managed to capture the moment on film, and we now have a memorable head-on photo of the SLK taking a sharp left-hand curve with the Z4 close behind.

We had our traditional lunch at Bike World, where we partook one last time of the excellent Schnitzel and browsed the cool rides in the shop. In the afternoon we needed to buy one more two-lap ticket so we could each get in our final laps. While we were waiting in line, a German guy came around offering to sell us a two-lap ticket for 30 Euro (a savings of several Euro). John was very suspicious so we had the guy at the ticket booth confirm that there were indeed two laps left on the ticket. On our final lap, I took some video clips, which I have strung together to provide a partial representation of a lap of the Ring. You’ll hear me reading instructions to John off our track notes (I’d like to point out that reading track notes and taking video at the same time is no small feat). At around minute 3:50 you will see a note appear on the video referring to an orange flag (which isn’t quite visible in this low-resolution version) and you can barely hear John say, “Put that down,” because he doesn’t want anyone to see that I am holding a camera. (Taking pictures and video while on the Ring is strictly forbidden, but I decided to take the risk on our last go-round.) At that point we passed an accident, but this lap was actually one of the cleanest we ever experienced on the track. You’ll only see four other cars in the whole video (three Porsches and a Suzuki). The video is about five minutes long and covers about one-third of the entire length of the track.

It was an exhilarating day and we didn’t want to leave. We knew that we would not return to the Ring for a very long time, if ever, and never again in our “own” car. (Next time we’ll be the ones in the “Rent-a-Racecar” that the locals jeer at.) The Nürburgring is like no other driving experience on the planet, and we will savor the memories of our five visits there (in three different cars – the smart forfour Brabus, E-Class, and SLK) with great fondness.

Jürgen had invited us to join his parents, who live about an hour away, for an early dinner after our day at the track. We met up in a small town near the Autobahn and had a lovely meal in a traditional German restaurant. Jürgen’s father was an English teacher in Finland when Jürgen was young; he sat next to John and they spoke English all night while I spoke German with Jürgen’s mother! It was an enjoyable meal and a nice way to end the day. After that, we said our farewells and made the three-hour drive back to Stuttgart.

More photos from the Ring:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hausfrau/sets/72157604141684917/

2 October: I am a German Entrepreneur!

While I was at Kaufland doing my grocery shopping, a guy stopped me to ask a question. Now, whenever someone stops to ask me a question in Germany, my heart always leaps into my throat as I desperately hope that I will be able to understand them and respond in a halfway intelligent manner. (This happens all the time in Botnang – people are always stopping me while I’m walking the dog to ask for directions. Naturally they assume that someone walking their dog knows the neighborhood. Little do they know that they are talking to a silly American who can barely pronounce the name of her own street!) Anyway, this nice young man didn’t want to know the difference between leeks and green onions; no, he was holding up his cell phone and wanted to know whether he should use Ihr or dich (formal or informal “you”) if he wanted to buy something over the phone. Yes, that’s right, someone stopped me in the grocery store to ask a German grammar question! After a moment’s pause to digest his question, I responded, “Ihr.” Then, to explain my hesitation, I said, “Ich bin Amerikanerin!” He chuckled and said, “Ich bin Mexicanisch!” I said (still in German), “Your German is very good!” and he said, “So is yours!”

When I came home from Kaufland there was a black Smart forfour parked in front of our house. At first I thought it was a real Brabus like mine but I after a quick once-over I decided it only had a Brabus “appearance” package (wheels and exhaust). I immediately felt a melancholy pang as I thought fondly of my long-gone Smart, and then the entrepreneur in me kicked in and I said to myself, “Maybe they need winter tires!” The winter tires from my Smart have been sitting in our garage for the past year and a half and we really need to get our act together and sell them now that winter is right around the corner. So I went upstairs, put my groceries away, and quickly jotted down a note with my offer (a very reasonable 350 Euro) and stuck it on the car’s windshield. Lo and behold, about half an hour later, I got a phone call from the woman who owns the car! She said she didn’t have winter tires yet and was interested, but that she would need to talk to her husband and would call me back this evening. I will cross my fingers, because it would be great to check those tires off the long list of items we need to offload before we leave.

Since tomorrow is a holiday, I went to Marilena’s 7:15 jazz class this evening. I quickly discovered that a less experienced group comes to this class and Marilena teaches accordingly – everything was just a touch slower and easier. After class I asked her about it and she explained that the Wednesday class is mostly made up of students from the professional training program (I had noticed that they all go up after class to have some sort of timesheet signed) so she has to be tougher on them. I filed away this bit of information…it sounds like I might have it a bit easier if I come to the Tuesday class!

Sunday, 19 August: Disaster Strikes for Gronholm!

We didn’t have far to go this morning since we had tickets for bleacher seats to watch the Circus Maximus spectator stage, taking place literally steps from the hotel. We checked out after breakfast but left our car in the hotel lot, then went in search of our seats. Two sets of bleachers had been set up along the route and we had been randomly assigned seats in the bleachers near the finish line of the course. We arrived early and were disappointed to discover that we had a pretty lousy view – basically just a long sweeping turn with very little likelihood of any major action – and we’d have to dodge the heads of everyone seated around us. Plus there was no sign of the promised giant video screen, which would have allowed us to see the action on the rest of the course. We decided to walk around for a bit and see if we could find any standing room with a better view, but the best spots were already staked out. On our way back to our seats we spoke to a course worker and asked about the whereabouts of the video screens; he said he didn’t know what had happened but there weren’t any screens anywhere. Frustrated, we returned to our bleacher seats and decided to grin and bear it.

It was rather fun to see the rally cars in a more traditional race setting. The cars went out on the course in staggered groups of four and they lapped the course three times. Of course we only saw them for about three seconds with each pass. We got some nice shots and video, but after watching a few of the N-Class Evos and Subarus go by, we decided to leave early and try to make it to the very last stage of the rally, Moselwein, set in the vineyards in a steeply sloped valley on the north side of the river. (Unfortunately we missed the Dhrontal stage, perhaps the most spectacular setting of the whole rally, because we had opted to see the spectator stage.)

Photos from Circus Maximus:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hausfrau/sets/72157601790856497/

We parked along the street in a beautiful brand-new residential development and made the long trek up the hill into the vineyards. We found a nice spot amongst the vines on the outside edge of a left-hand turn; the cars would be coming straight at us from a long downhill, then turn sharply to the left and head down what turned out to be a steep concrete drainage ditch. John took up a position higher up between the vine rows for a good video angle; I was standing a few feet up from the rock wall lining the road until a guy saw me there and graciously gestured for me to come down and join the line along the wall. I responded in German but quickly discovered that he was one of a group of Frenchmen – all rooting for Sebastien Loeb, naturally. After a while I said something to him in French and he did a double-take, asking me if I spoke French. I explained that I had studied French in school but was now living in Germany, so my French was suffering (this said in rather faltering French, slipping into German at the end). I daresay he was surprised to find an American girl out watching a rally in the German countryside who could speak (OK, “speak” might be a bit strong) not one but two foreign languages.

We ended up having a pretty thrilling spot from which to observe our last stage of Rallye Deutschland. We all had a grand time watching the top WRC competitors take the screeching left-hander; I was anxiously awaiting Markus Grönholm, who has been my favorite WRC driver ever since he tried to take me out on that crazy turn in the St. Wendelerland stage last year. Grönholm and Loeb were currently first and second in the overall championship, and while the gravel-specialist Finn was not favored to win the asphalt German rally, he needed to hold onto second position to maintain his lead in the championship. So you can imagine my horror and anguish when Grönholm finally came around the turn and the crippled right rear end of his car swung into view. Half of his rear quarter-panel was ripped off, the rear bumper was gone, and his right rear wheel was hanging out at an awkward angle, completely detached from the suspension. Grönholm was obviously determined to limp to the finish line, but his hopes of winning the championship were now called into question.

The French fans cheered madly at Grönholm’s sorry plight. And what was the very next car to come into view? Loeb’s pristine cherry-red Citröen, of course. The Frenchmen went wild. My spirits slightly dampened, we watched the rest of the Super 1600 series while the French fans packed up and left. I grew bored with my position after a while so I moved around a bit, experimenting with some interesting photo angles through the vines. We stuck around until practically everyone else around us had gone…right up until the very last car, the little yellow Fiat Seicento driven by Jürgen Hohlheimer, rounded the bend at the bottom of the ditch and disappeared from view. Then we too packed up, walked down the hill to the car, and headed back to Trier.

Photos from Moselwein:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hausfrau/sets/72157601791464485/

It was still early in the afternoon so we decided to check out the rally aftermath at Parc Fermé. All of the top finishers had already arrived and we spent some time checking out the cars – dents, scrapes, duct tape and all – while the Super 1600 and N-Class cars pulled in. Several of the drivers paused to check out the damage to Grönholm’s car. After watching some Evos arrive, we walked back to Trier’s main market square to have lunch outside. The rally cars were routed straight through the square so we got to see the final finishers come through while we ate. We were surrounded by rally fans and everyone cheered and waved as the cars came by. Our meal was interrupted by a sudden downpour, but fortunately we were under the cover of a large umbrella. After finishing our lunch, we headed back to the car and made the uneventful drive home to Stuttgart. It was another amazing rally experience for us and we feel exceptionally lucky to have had the opportunity to go twice. Now if only we could get to Rallye Ireland next year…

Photos from Parc Fermé:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hausfrau/sets/72157601791693755/

Postcript: Only after we returned home and went online did we discover the exact nature of Grönholm’s accident. Apparently he was distracted by a cow grazing close to the road and went off. There were no videocameras or photographers on site and the only record of the crash is from Grönholm’s in-car camera. Less than three weeks later, Grönholm announced his plans to retire after the 2007 WRC season. He ended up placing second in the championship, just four points behind Loeb.

Saturday, 18 August: Giant Jumps, Twisting Turns & Rapid Repairs

We were thrilled to discover that this year’s Rallye schedule slated the first running of the Panzerplatte stage for 11 a.m. this morning, so we didn’t have to get out of bed unreasonably early. As you may recall, Panzerplatte (named after the German Panzer tanks) is run on the concrete-paved testing grounds of an old military base and is one of the most famous – and longest, at 30.5 km – stages in the WRC lineup. The stage is also home to the “Gina” jump, the best-known jump of Rallye Deutschland. Seeing the cars catch huge air here was one of the highlights of our Rallye experience last year and we wanted to try to arrive earlier this time to get an even better viewing position. Of course we slightly underestimated how long it took to drive to the stage, park in one of the huge lots near the barracks, get on a shuttle bus, and then make the long trek over the undulating fields of the military grounds to finally arrive at the gently sloping “Gina” viewing area. We were dismayed to discover that all of the best spots along the fence were already claimed, but we managed to stake out what were essentially second-row seats. We brought our camp chairs along and settled in for yet another long wait. A group of people sitting next to us had huge beach umbrellas set up to block the sun, which partially blocked our view and the view of everyone sitting behind them. As start time approached, we began to wonder if they were ever going to take the umbrellas down. It wasn’t even hot out. I finally worked up the nerve to ask them in German to put their umbrellas away, and they complied. Some of the spectators behind us gave me appreciative looks. The WRC cars didn’t catch too much air, as usual, but the Super 1600s didn’t disappoint and the Evos made some fantastic jumps. There’s nothing quite like seeing an Evo flying through the air and thinking, “That’s our car!” I don’t think anyone topped the little Renault Clios and Citröens from last year, but we saw plenty of great jumps.

You can see my best photos from Panzerplatte here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hausfrau/sets/72157601783962038/

We didn’t stick around to watch the historic rally cars because we knew from last year that they wouldn’t get a lot of air going over the jump. Next we decided to go off the beaten track to the Bosenberg stage. We were attracted to the description of an “S”-curve viewing area but had some trouble figuring out where to park. We finally made our way through cornfields and rolling meadows to the viewing area, which was only sparsely populated with spectators. I decided to take up a position right along the road for close-ups while John stood on higher ground for videotaping. After watching all of the WRC cars go by we decided to hike along the road a short distance and found another great viewing area where we could see the cars coming through a twisty wooded section. I wish we’d been there to see the WRC cars, as it was a fabulous location for photos and video. Most of the spectators left after the WRC cars finished, so we had plenty of room to move around for good shots of the Super 1600 and N-class cars. It was especially fun to watch the less-experienced drivers trying to maneuver through the tight uphill S-turn, narrowly missing a road sign in the process.

Here are photos from Bosenberg:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hausfrau/sets/72157601790553327/

We decided to end our day at the Service Park, where you can get up close and personal with the drivers and team mechanics, who work furiously to repair the beaten and battered cars during their strictly-allotted 45-minute service period. The Rallye organizers wisely moved the location of the Service Park this year from the Bostalsee (a good 45-minute drive from Trier) to the large fairgrounds near downtown Trier. This made getting to and from the Service Park a lot easier, although parking was a bit of a pain. We had to park on the street and then walk quite a ways through a rather sketchy industrial area to get to the Service Park. En route we passed a whole line-up of Subaru WRX wanna-be rally cars. We arrived in time to see the first WRC cars arrive, and stopped to watch a couple of them getting a quick wash before entering the park grounds. We watched the Stobart Ford crew working on Latvala’s car and saw the evening press conference with Markus Grönholm, Sebastian Loeb, and Dani Sordo, the current top place-holders, from afar (I got a darn good photo of them with my zoom, considering I was several hundred yards away!).

At some point while we were standing between the Citröen and Ford tents, John and I got separated. I literally turned around and he was gone. I stuck to the fence where I had last seen him, took some photos of cars coming and going, and waited. And waited. I was the only one with a cell phone and we didn’t have any contingency plan if we got separated. I tried not to panic, except I had no way of knowing if John had noticed my absence immediately, or if he had walked halfway around the Service Park before realizing I was not at his side. The Service Park is a very big place and there were thousands of fans milling around, and it was getting dark. There was a guy with a microphone walking around doing roving interviews and I was half-tempted to go up to him and ask him to call out to my wayward husband. Some fifteen minutes later, we found each other again, about ten feet from where we had last seen each other. John claims that I am the one who suddenly disappeared.

Together again, we left the WRC area to check out the less-crowded Super 1600 tents. I daresay we recognized the Japanese crew leader at one of the Suzuki tents (the guy who came out and said, “Ten more minutes!” last year). After a lot of searching (and even asking someone for directions) we finally found the independent N-class cars tucked away in a forgotten corner. It’s always fun to see the guys working on their Evos, away from the crowds, with no barriers between you and the cars. I was also happy to finally see the tiny yellow Fiat with its frizzy-haired German owner/driver furiously working away on his pride and joy.

Here are photos from the Service Park:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hausfrau/sets/72157601790642255/

It was pretty much dark by now and most of the WRC cars had left, so we made our way back to our car and drove back to the hotel. Except we hit a bit of a roadblock – literally. We knew some of the streets in downtown Trier were goint to be blocked off for tomorrow’s Circus Maximus stage – a new addition to the Rallye Deutschland schedule. Every rally features a special “spectator stage” that takes place in an arena or in town. It’s usually a very short stage and the cars run the circuit two or three times, which means the spectators get more viewing opportunities, hence the name “spectator stage.” Last year, the spectator stage was in a small village near Trier; we didn’t go because we’d heard that the viewing locations weren’t all that exciting. This year they moved the stage into the heart of Trier for the first time, and it was going to run right past the Porta Nigra and our hotel.

What we didn’t realize is that they had already blocked off the streets in preparation for the stage tomorrow morning, and we found a concrete barrier barricading the main access route to our hotel. We tried to use Susie’s navigational skills to approach the hotel from other angles, but we kept ending up back in the same place. We couldn’t find any other places to park nearby and we became increasingly frustrated, since we were literally across the street from our hotel. Finally I told John to stay with the car while I ran over to the hotel to ask for help. I tried to explain to the woman at the reception desk what our problem was, but my German failed me and I had to switch to English. She pulled out a street map of Trier but it was not nearly as detailed as Susie’s map, so that wasn’t going to help us navigate the maze of streets. An older, well-dressed gentleman was standing next to the desk and the woman turned to him and asked his advice. I figured out after a few moments that he was somehow connected with the hotel.

The gentleman said he was going to his car and that he would drive me back to our car and then we could follow him to the parking lot, but I thought that sounded rather complicated since he would have to get over to where John was parked and then drive all the way back. I suggested that he come with me instead and be our navigator. He told his wife, who was also waiting in the lobby, that he would be back in a few minutes and then walked with me out to our car. We started chatting along the way (in German, of course), and I quickly learned that he was actually the owner of the hotel! I think John was rather stunned to see me show up with the hotel owner in tow. The gentleman was very nice and wanted to know all about what we were doing in Germany and how we liked living here. We talked about Mercedes and he told us that he drove an S-Class and his wife had an SL convertible. So not only was he the hotel owner, he was also quite rich. And here he was sitting in our car, amiably navigating a couple of wayward guests to the parking lot! He guided us with ease through a series of dark, narrow streets, some of which were barely wide enough for our car to pass through, and finally we ended up back at the carpark. We thanked the gentleman profusely and then went in to eat a very later dinner at the hotel restaurant. Our servers were a bit snippy with us at first because it was quite late and they had to keep the kitchen open for us, but while we were eating the hotel owner came by and gave us a little guidebook to Trier. After that the servers were much nicer.

Friday, 17 August: Let the Rallye Begin!

After partaking of the hotel’s fine breakfast buffet, we headed out to Ruwertal, the very first stage of the rally, with a start time of 10:13 a.m. We arrived with plenty of time to park in a huge grassy field and hiked about ten minutes to the first viewing area, which consisted of a short straightaway, a sharp right turn, and a lefthand hairpin. We staked out a decent position just above the hairpin, but were a bit disappointed because the best angle for photos was on the lower side of the bend, which was off-limits to spectators. (As always, I was immensely jealous of the press photographers, who get all the best shooting angles.) While we waited for the stage to start I took a hike through the woods to the next viewing area, another hairpin bend heavily shaded by trees. It was a dramatic turn but it was already pretty thickly staked out by spectators and I was worried about the low light conditions for photography, so we ended up sticking with our original position. All of the WRC cars and most of the Super 1600s made it through smoothly but some of the Evos and Subarus made some dramatic slides.

Here are photos from Ruwertal:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hausfrau/sets/72157601774317769/

We grabbed some sausages and Cokes for lunch and then headed to the second running of the Schönes Moselland stage, which, as its name suggest (schön means “beautiful”), is set on a dramatic vineyard-covered hillside overlooking the town of Piesport, surrounded by an enormous horseshoe bend in the Mosel River. We arrived in time to take some shots of the postcard-perfect scenery and then made our way down the hill in search of the ideal viewing spot. We arrived between stages and managed to nudge our way up to the fence on the lower outer side of another lefthand hairpin turn. We watched the historic rally cars go by from the previous running of the stage and then waited around for over an hour and a half for our stage to start (rally fans certainly have to be patient). From here we could see the cars snaking down the next hill in the distance and we could just barely make out two white cars that had gone off the road and were now stuck amidst the vineyard rows. A crew was swarming around one of the cars but they didn’t succeed in retrieving it – I guess they are out for the duration. We think the two unfortunates were Super 1600 entries but we couldn’t tell for sure.

There were no big mistakes by the WRC cars at our turn, although Petter Solberg deposited some large chunks of rubber on the road as his already-damaged Subaru came screaming around the bend. A guy ran out and snatched up a hunk of the rubber – to take home as a souvenir?!? There were a lot of naughty spectators here who kept trying to sneak up the road between the vineyard rows, and I could swear that I saw several of them trying to touch the cars as they went by. (This is no laughing matter – one of the motivating factors for the establishment of controlled spectator zones in the last decade was that several fans lost fingers while trying to touch the cars, and more than one spectator has been run over.) The course marshals do their best to look for wayward fans and keep them behind the fences. One of the marshals was wearing a floppy straw hat and everyone jeered at him when his hat blew off and he had to walk out onto the course to retrieve it. We didn’t stick around to watch all of the independent-class cars because we wanted to get back to Trier to watch the WRC cars arrive at Parc Fermé.

Here are photos from Schönes Moselland:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hausfrau/collections/72157601674185737/

We drove back to Trier, parked at the hotel, and made our way through the center of town to the Parc Fermé (closed park) at the Viehmarktplatz, where all of the rally cars have to spend the night. The cars arrived by a different route from last year and we got to watch them driving through the streets of Trier. This is always a fun thing to see, especially when you get a great shot of folks sitting at an outdoor café just a few feet away from a passing WRC car. We arrived at Parc Fermé just in time to see Grönholm drive in and greet the throngs of fans. We also watched Kopecky, Latvala, Stohl, Atkinson, and several of the other WRC cars arrive, then went back out to the street to watch some more cars coming through. We ended up eating a late dinner at the hotel, which was excellent.

Here are photos from Parc Fermé:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hausfrau/sets/72157601783882210/

Thursday, 16 August: Return to Rallye Deutschland

We have been looking forward to our second trip to Rallye Deutschland for some time now. I won’t bother with the long drawn-out description and analysis that I wrote last year, particularly since I am writing this four months after the fact (whoops, didn’t mean to let that slip), so I’ll simply provide brief highlights here.

We made the drive up to Trier in the E-Class this evening. We got off to a late start – after 6 pm – and I was driving because John had already had a long day at work. I was making good time on the empty Autobahn as we approached the Mosel Valley, maintaining speeds of 180-200 kph. As I came around a long, sweeping bend in the fast lane, passing a BMW wagon that was going a tick slower than me, John suddenly shouted, "Watch out." My gaze jumped ahead to the right side of the road just beyond the bend, where we could see that a couple of semis were parked on the shoulder. I immediately let off the gas, and the BMW next to me simultaneously began to slow down. Only after several seconds (and several hundred yards) had passed did my eyes return to my lane, at which point I registered the fact that a police car was ahead of me with its flashers on (but not its police lights). It took another split second (and a few more yards) for me to realize that the police car was at a DEAD STOP. In the fast lane. On an unlimited stretch of Autobahn. With no flares, emergency triangles, or anything else to give drivers like me any advance warning. The BMW was still next to me in the right lane, so I had nowhere to go. I hit the brakes, hard, but not hard enough to set off the ABS. After a second, I realized that we were still approaching the police car at an alarmingly fast rate. I had never slammed on the brakes before at 180 kph, but this was the big moment to find out what the E-Class could do. I gripped the steering wheel and slammed my foot on the brake. The ABS went wild, the tires squealed threateningly, and it seemed to take an interminably long time for the car to come to a screeching but controlled stop, about 30 feet from the police car. It gave me quite an adrenaline rush. The only time I've ever had a scare like that was when I almost ran over a howler monkey that tried to cross the road in front of me in Costa Rica. This time the stakes were a tad higher than just a flattened monkey.

Meanwhile the BMW continued merrily on its way in the right lane. I slowly moved over, passed the police car, and proceeded down the road. I was so shaken up that I didn't think to look as we passed the trucks on the shoulder. John said it looked like they were clearing up and accident, but that didn't explain why the police car was parked in the middle of the Autobahn. He said the two Polizei officers gave us a funny look, as if they were thinking that perhaps they should move their car.

We made it the rest of the way to Trier without incident, and navigated ourselves smoothly to our hotel, the Römischer Kaiser, where we stayed last year. This time we knew the drill, so we pulled up on the sidewalk, checked in, brought our suitcases inside, and then John took the car down the street to the hotel's gated carpark. Our room was not quite as spacious and bright as our corner room last year and we had a tiny dormer window overlooking the rooftops instead of a nice street view, but it suited our needs since we didn't intend to spend a whole lot of time there. We quickly settled our things and then headed out into a light drizzle to find a good spot to observe the Rallye Start.

We chose a position along the straightaway, within sight of the Porta Nigra and one of the big video screens so we could see the drivers giving their interviews under the Red Bull arch. A group of Czech fans came by, dressed head-to-toe in Czech flags and shaggy red-and-yellow wigs and blasting toy trumpets. Unfortunately I was surrounded by people who kept sticking their cameras out in front of me (dangling neck straps and all), plus it was overcast (and still trying to rain), so my photos didn't turn out great, but it was fun to watch the cars rumbling past. John got us some french fries (slathered with mayonnaise and ketchup, of course) and a Coke to tide us over until we could have a late dinner. We watched all of the WRC cars go by and some of the Super-1600 class and then walked down the street towards the huge fortress-like cathedral to see the Evos and Subarus up close and personal. Just like last year, there were no crowd barriers here so the fans could get as close as they wanted, sometimes lying down in front of the cars to take pictures and rushing up to shake the drivers’ hands. After the action came to a close, we wandered back towards the hotel and stopped for a late dinner at a bistro-style place just around the corner from our hotel.

You can see pictures from the Rallye Start here on my Flickr site:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/hausfrau/sets/72157601754228619/

24 June: The Goodwood Festival of Mud

We got up at a painfully early 6 a.m. (aren’t we on vacation?) so we could leave for Goodwood promptly at 7 a.m. We had requested a boxed breakfast to take with us and the woman at the front desk said it would be brought to our room, but it didn’t show up, so we went down to the front desk and managed to flag someone down – the same man who had suggested our little stroll last night. There must have been a miscommunication because he came back from the kitchen a moment later with a bulging sack stuffed with two ham sandwiches, two cheese-and-tomato sandwiches, a plastic carton of cherries, two apples, two oranges, and two tomatoes. Enough for a small army! We ate a couple of the sandwiches (OK, they were just dry rolls and ham, but still tasty) and saved the rest for future meals on the road.

We headed west to Goodwood in a steady rain. Covering a sprawling 12,000 acres of rolling Sussex countryside, the Goodwood Estate has been the home of the Dukes of Richmond for over three hundred years. In addition to a long tradition of horse racing, golf, and shooting sports, Goodwood is steeped in motor racing history and, since 1993, has been the home of the Goodwood Festival of Speed, purportedly the “world’s biggest celebration of the motor car.”

We hit a long line of traffic waiting to enter the parking lot (I use the term “lot” loosely) but we finally made our way to a space in the huge, already water-logged field. We were dressed as well as we could be for the weather – I was wearing just about every layer I had brought with me, including a t-shirt, light sweatshirt, fleece, and waterproof rainjacket, along with zip-off nylon hiking pants and heavy hiking boots – but our spirits were definitely a bit deflated by the prospect of a long wet day ahead. Fortunately we fell on the high end of the scale in terms of preparedness in comparison to many of our fellow Goodwood spectators. I couldn’t believe how many women I saw dressed in white summer suits and dresses, high heels, sandals, or ballet flats…what were they thinking??

For £10 we bought a program and miniature radio (which allows you to listen to the continual broadcast from the famous “Hill Climb” no matter where you are on the grounds) and started the long trek to the show grounds. As we approached the entrance we passed the assembly area at the base of the Hill Climb, which was crammed with specimens of just about every supercar known to man…Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Maseratis, a Bugatti Veyron, the new Skyline GTR in disguise, a Tesla electric sportscar, the new Audi R8…it was a veritable sea of automotive testosterone (photo, right). We arrived at the main entrance around 8:30 and headed for the Hill Climb track, a 1.16-mile paved course that starts near Goodwood House and ends somewhere in the woods above. We found a good spot along the hay bales lining the course with a view of about 200 yards of the track…and stood there for nearly four hours. In the rain. Well, it did stop for about ten minutes around mid-morning.

The Hill Climb runs throughout the day and the cars are divided into various classes by year and type. After the parade of supercars, we watched almost all of the classes come through...hundreds of cars (and motorcycles too) from every epoch of racing history: Grand Prix, Le Mans, CanAm, Indy, rally, touring, F1...they all made a good show, revving engines and sending up great plumes of spray as they whizzed by. We saw one of six "Blitzen Benz", which achieved 140 mph at Daytona in 1911, becoming the fastest car in the world...the one-of-a-kind 1923 Thomas Special "Babs", recovered and rebuilt after being buried at Pendine Sands along with the remains of Land Speed Record breaker Parry Thomas after his tragic 171-mph crash in 1927 (photo, above)...a 1956 Jaguar D-Type "Long-Nose" Le Mans car driven by British F1 driver David Coulthard...the 1985 Audi Quattro S1 driven to victory in the Pike's Peak Hill Climb by Michele Mouton, the first woman and foreigner to do so and the only woman to ever win a World Rallye Championship event. Louis Hamilton, native son and current Formula 1 darling, ran the course twice in the 2006 McLaren Mercedes F1 car, stopping right in front of us to wave to the crowd. Some American stock cars even made an appearance, including the "High-Risk" custom-built Corvette (photo, right) and "Hurst Hemi Under Glass" Plymouth Barracuda, both "wheelie cars" capable of prolonged forward motion on their rear wheels.

Around noon the Red Arrows (the Royal Air Force stunt team) performed a show, which was quite spectacular, given that they had to fly below the clouds (photo, right). Unfortunately it was difficult to watch the planes and the cars at the same time. I must have taken 500 pictures over the course of those four hours, half of which were out of focus due to the rain. At some point the index finger of my left hand went completely numb, which would have been funny except that I lost all feeling in my finger for about fifteen minutes and it turned a rather odd shade of yellow. I’ve always had bad circulation in my fingers, but this was really bizarre. To make matters worse, John refused to take my agony seriously. Finally, after much anxious rubbing and flexing and freaking out on my part, my frozen finger returned to a near-normal state. (Postscript: John insisted that I share the story of my “dead” finger with friends while we were having dinner at the Weindorf in Stuttgart. Granted, I had a little wine in me. That night I dreamed that I was at a hospital and they were going to amputate my finger as a preventative measure. I held my finger up and flexed it frantically, saying, “I don’t want you to cut it off! See? It’s working fine now!”)

We eventually decided to check out the sprawling paddock area (BMW paddock, right), where you can get up close and personal with the cars and drivers. This is one of the features for which Goodwood is famous; in a typical race setting most of the fans never get anywhere near the paddock. We bought cups of hot chocolate to warm up and wandered around, listening to the revving engines and checking out the many rare pieces of machinery on display. We noticed quite a few cars did not go out on the track today, perhaps due to the rain, including what looked to be one of this year’s winning Audi Le Mans cars.

We stopped further up the Hill Climb to watch some more historic cars pass, then made our way up a long muddy slog of a hill (photo, right) to the Forest Rally track. Along the way we passed an off-road course where people were paying £30 to go for a ride in Bowler Wildcat racing SUVs. Mud was flying everywhere and I’m sure they were having a rollicking good time, but £30 seemed like a major rip-off for one lap. We were passed by tractors pulling trailers full of spectators, but we toughed it out in the mud. They added a new jump to the rally course this year, so we followed the signs along a muddy trail through the woods, leaving the crowds far behind. We eventually found the jump and camped out under our umbrellas to watch for a while. The cars (both modern and historic rally cars) weren’t getting as much speed due to the muddy conditions, but a few got some pretty good air. There were several WRC drivers in attendance, familiar to us from last year’s Rallye Deutschland, including British Ford Stobart driver Matthew Wilson and Australian Subaru driver Chris Atkinson (photo, right). The announcer reported that the times were much slower than usual due to the “particularly slippery” and “fluid” conditions (understatement of the year). On our way back we saw several rally cars spinning and sliding through the mud. I managed to get a few good shots, but it meant running up to the fence and snatching a picture, then running away again to avoid the roostertail of muddy spray.

On our way back down to the main showground, we bought a couple of cheeseburgers for a whopping £12 (That’s $24! For two burgers!) and made the mistake of adding a dollop of mustard to our buns. I don’t know where the English get their ideas about mustard, but this stuff was like eating fire! I saw one guy put a hearty portion on his burger, take a bite, and nearly choke before smearing it all off onto his plate, so apparently we weren’t the only ones to be taken by surprise.

There was more to see of the show, including lots of exhibits and shops near the paddock area, but our pants were starting to soak through and, let’s face it, we were pretty cold and miserable by this point. Plus we had a bit of a drive ahead of us to get to Salisbury, our destination for the night. Getting ourselves into the car without smearing mud everywhere took quite some doing; we didn’t really want to make a mess of the car only a day into our trip. We both managed to get our boots off and change into dry pants. My boots had completely soaked through so I turned the heat on full blast and put my frigid toes over the vents. We later heard that today's was the worst weather they had experienced in the 14-year history of the show.

It took us about ninety minutes to drive to the Cricketfield House Hotel on the outskirts of Salisbury. We stopped for gas a short ways down the road and found the hotel without too much trouble, although this time we had to rely more on Susie than on the directions I had printed off the hotel website, which didn’t make any sense at all. A cheerful older gentleman checked us in and helped us to our room – a “cottage style” place on the second floor, done in pretty floral prints with a springy bed, nice clean bathroom with tiny stand-up shower, and a view into the back garden. We decided to crash in our room and snacked on the leftovers from our breakfast rather than going into town for dinner. We unpacked everything we had brought with us today, washed out our mud-soaked pants in the shower and hung everything up to dry. Before turning in for the night, we watched a really interesting BBC program about the southern coast of Wales – which, naturally, was one of the places we would not be hitting on this trip.

19-20 May: Yard Work & Fast Cars

Our first priority on Saturday was to clean up our yard. After a quick stop at Starbuck’s for coffee and pastries (where, to John’s dismay, he discovered that you still have to pay for Wi-Fi), we headed over to Bordine’s Nursery and bought a dozen bags of mulch, which just about filled the back of the Subaru. We spent the next several hours giving the yard a makeover. John cleaned up the front yard and mowed in back while I mulched the flower beds, trimmed back the overgrown burning bushes lining our front walk, and made a vain attempt at pulling up the myriad dandelions populating our yard (most of which had already gone to seed, which means that our lawn will probably be more dandelions than grass by the end of the summer). We cut back the huge viburnums growing along our side fence and tied them up so they wouldn’t hang over the path. I looked around the backyard for my Michigan natives, which I have been slowly adding to the garden over the past few years. Most of them seem to be doing great without any help on my part – the wild geraniums and meadow rue in my shade garden were over 18 inches high, and my sprouting clump of Joe-pye weed is bigger than ever. I do have to admit that I miss my garden. We stopped for lunch midday – sub sandwiches and fries at Penn Station – and finished up around six o’clock. After dinner (I can’t for the life of me remember where we ate) we were feeling awake enough to go see Spiderman 3 at the AMC Theater in Sterling Heights, our first movie out in nearly a year. It was great, although we agreed that Spiderman 2 was better.

On Sunday we had breakfast at Panera (which has free Wi-Fi), where I ran into our former neighbor - the one who was supposed to be watching our house. She was very surprised to see me (she hadn't gotten my e-mail yet saying that we were coming for a visit) and explained that they had moved into a condo because her husband's health was declining. She apologized for not telling me that they had moved out and promised to drop off our house key this weekend.

After breakfast we headed up to Waterford Hills to check out the track event. As most of you who read my annual holiday letter are aware, John’s boss at Chrysler rents out the Waterford Hills road course for one day every year, and a few dozen select invitees get to go and satisfy our need for speed by driving around as fast as we can. In recent years the neighbors living around the track have upped their noise complaints, so there are severe restrictions on when you can drive and how loud your car can be. We figure that eventually the neighbors will complain so much that the track will be shut down, so we are taking advantage of it while we can. This year’s event just happened to be scheduled for while we were in Michigan (I swear this was only a lucky coincidence).

Visiting the track was a bittersweet experience, since we had no car to drive. My Audi A4, which I had to sell before we moved to Germany, is now owned by some guy in Royal Oak who doesn’t know a stick shift from a broomstick, and John’s Mitsubishi Evolution is under wraps in our garage, resting on bald tires without a battery. So for the first time ever we were mere spectators, hoping nobody noticed the hideously ugly vehicle that we arrived in, watching jealously as various Chrysler and GM employees whizzed around the course. It was good for us to be there, because John got a chance to socialize with friends and colleagues. We brought our helmets just in case we could bum a ride or two, and I finally got to go for a ride in John's boss' Viper (that's me in the top photo). The Viper is a very fast car and John's boss is an experienced racecar driver, so this was, shall I say, a thrilling experience. I actually think he should consider offering it as a chiropractic service, as I definitely worked out a few neck kinks in the process. He found it quite amusing that they offer rides in a race-ready Viper on the Nürburgring for 250 Euro per lap – I suggested that he could make a pretty good living doing that if he ever wanted to give up designing cars. John went for a ride in the Viper too, but I caught him looking longingly at another guy's Mitsubishi Evo (bottom photo).

We ran some more errands in the afternoon and then walked over to Nina & Brian's house for an excellent hamburger dinner, with entertainment provided by 18-month-old Tommy.