The scent of lingering race fuel in the air is intoxicating

Thursday

After going to bed at 4am, I woke up at 9am to the sound of engines screaming through Schwalbenschwanz as they entered the “Small Carousel.” Today there was mostly Qualifying Rounds for the Classics Race, MINI Challenge, 24hours and other series. It was nice seeing all the cars of all makes and models. The most distinguishing sound came from the Mercedes SLS. We grilled and talked with our camp neighbors and I explored a bit of the track. The weather was strange, switching intermittently between rain and sun.  It started to get muddy, but it didn’t matter. The lingering smell of race fuel was in the air, and it was oh so sweet.

One does not appreciate the technical difficulty of a track until you see it with your own eyes. Tracking the cars as they come around bends and what you think is a straight away, offers a switching camber shifting the cars right and left; ultimately making some lose their line or even snuffing it into the grass. The hills were extremely steep. You cannot appreciate the gradient by merely playing video games. The "Small Carousel" is a tight hairpin turn with a steep bank. A lot of cars scrape as they dip in, and one can often see sparks of parts of the underbody being ripped off the car. It was very difficult taking pictures as there were fences everywhere, albeit for good safety reasons.

The Camp

The only Subaru!

Claudia Hürtgen!

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