Wednesday 11th July – 38.3 Mile *THE RING*

Lazy start to the day; at least for three of us. Whilst we lounged late in camp Paul was up and on the road early to catch us up after his 'detour'. The weather seemed undecided but we were adamant that we were going to remain unperturbed. We finally met back up with Paul. I felt unusually overjoyed to see him again, safe and sound and back in the group. He'd only been AWOL for one day!!!

We sat and had a coffee while watching Caterhams, Lotus', Porsche and even an old Fiat and the like hair around the F1 track. There's a certain buzz to the 'Ring' that I think only petrol heads might get. I loved it! The rain was causing some doubts as to whether we would ride the Nordschleife or not. We did a bit of shopping and checked out the museum.

The museum was fun. Loads to see and do plus some cool PS2 interactive stuff. There was a couple of motion simulators so you could experience the g-forces of a F1 car around the circuit.

It would have been sacrilege to come all this way and not ride the track. What ever the weather. So when Rob announced that he was thinking the same as me I was over the moon (I hadn't wanted to do it on my own). Paul and Simon decided to give it a miss. We paid our 19 Euros and jumped on for our 'wet lap'. It was so much fun I can't describe!

The XTX really proved it's mettle on the track. I could break really late, hang deep in the corners and still have enough for an extra fistful on the exit. With the Avon Distanzias nice and warm I hardly noticed it was raining to be honest. It was all over far too quick. Once again all the horror stories proved unfounded. I saw one car, that passed me on the final straight that runs into the finish cones. They were welding a barrier back together at one point but I didn't think it a particularly difficult ride. Carousel was a bit scary, but I think I'd built it up so much in my mind that it was probably not as bad as I thought. There's a crest just before a long right hand sweeping bend where there was a crowd of onlookers cheering and waving – I nearly lost a bit of concentration there and had visions of coming off in front of them all but all in all I was buzzing so much when I came through the finish cones that I wanted to go again. I was hooting and hollering in my lid like a loon. Alas, it was closed for the evening. Rob eventually came in, he'd been stopped and told to remove his camera, he looked equally as chuffed to have done it too.

Back at camp and we fired up the stove and cooked up a storm. We made a fire in the woods and sat up late into the night listening to chilled tunes and drinking whiskey by the camp fire. The weather wasn't brilliant but we didn't care.