My big, fat racing adventure
Fast, fast, fast

The Racerhead after a solid day of fast driving at a classic F1 track. Many bugs died for his joy.
Note the Bridgehampton shirt. Yes, he brought his helmet to Europe.

I must admit to some fear and trepidation as we sat having dinner in our Nurburg hotel dining room the night before our track day at Spa. As the thunder crashed and lightning
lit up the sky, the rain poured down heavily outside. Watching concert goers getting drenched at the MTV concert at the close-by Nurburgring, I was thinking how much I did not want to drive Spa, for the first time, in heavy rain. A fearsomely fast track, Spa-Francorchamps has a history of eating cars and drivers. Originally wanting to do a track day at the ‘Ring, the aforesaid MTV concert put paid to that; it takes almost 3 days to clean up the place after this annual event. It sounded like it might be a good concert, as the drunken post-concert partyers roaming through Nurburg in the middle of the night attested to. Singing at the top of their lungs, whatever sleep I was to get was over for the night.
Music was to cross our paths a few times on this racing vacation.

Jim, Frank and I set off for Spa in the cool morning air in our two track day cars prepped by RSR Nurburg, which had been delivered to our hotel in Nurburg. An Alfa-Romeo 75 (Milano) track car, a stripped and prepped street car, 200 horse V6, rear-wheel drive, 5 speed box, roll cage, racing seats and belts, worked engine, suspension and grippy tires. Our other car was a RenaultSport Clio 197 Cup car. A mundane econohatch turned into a track tiger by RenaultSport, the production car arm of the Renault F1 team. Front-wheel drive, a snick-snick 6 speed box, clutch of perfect take-up, revvy 200hp engine with free-flow exhaust, Recaro seats, tight but not uncomfortable suspension, huge Brembo brakes and way-grippy Michelins. This car is the homologation basis for the Cup series that runs in several European countries. See Oulton Park for pictures of the racing version. I’d buy one of these
in a heartbeat. On the tight roads, copious switchbacks and fast highways of Germany and Belgium,
it was a delight to drive. The Alfa was somewhat akin to a truck with very grippy tires.

Click on photos for larger view

The sky was a threatening grey as we arrived at the very chilly Spa-Francorchamps Circuit, followed by a train of three GT3 RS Porsches, one with the very “see-me!” Lime Green paint. The smile on my face was huge as we rolled into the F1 paddock, and into the F1 garages. After a quick check-in, we toured the paddock briefly, ogling the countless Porsches (many 911s, a few GT3RSs, a Carrera GT and one GT2 being tuned for imminent production by a factory test driver), two Nissan GT-Rs, a Ferrari 550, some Astons, a few Alfas and one very racy Austin Healy 3000.

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