May 24 – Track Day at Circuit Park Zandvoort
After several rainy days, our first track day, while overcast, was thankfully dry. After an early breakfast, we headed to the track for our first official track day of the tour.
We started off with a briefing explaining how the day would go.
We were split into four groups and would rotate through three sections of the track and drifting during the morning. Driving a small section of the track over and over with an instructor in the car made it much easier to learn each part of the track. The drifting was done using provided cars and was a blast! The instructors made it look easy, but it was a bit harder than it looked to keep the drifting going. Then it was time get on the track!
After lunch, we got to do laps around the entire track using what we learned in the morning. It was so much fun! We also took a break to take some pictures on the track.
One of my laps during the afternoon.
After the track time was completed, the M Tour group wanted to set up some white and blue M cars in the shape of the BMW Roundel and take an overhead shot using a drone. As my car was blue, I got to have it in the picture. (the roundel picture and a few other track pictures ended up a story about the M Tour in the August 2016 Roundel magazine.) The highlight was one of our instructors drifting around all the M’s in the roundel!
To finish out the day, we headed into Amsterdam for dinner. The last two pictures show some of the old buildings that were really leaning a lot!
That evening, I got the first bit of road rash. While driving into the hotel parking lot after getting gas, I scraped the left bottom of my front bumper. The scratches weren’t noticeable unless you got down and looked underneath the bumper, but it was still a bit annoying.
May 25 – Drive to Nürburg & Break-in Service (Not!)
After a few pictures at the entrance to Circuit Park Zandvoort, we headed back towards Germany.
I had scheduled the break-in service at Autohaus Rolf Horn in Euskirchen, so didn’t have time for sightseeing along the way. So, no pictures. We made it on time for the service appointment. Everything went fine and we were told it would take about two hours, so we walked towards the town center for lunch. About two hours later we got back to the dealer only to find out they hadn’t done the service. It turned out there was some mix-up and they hadn’t ordered one of the parts they needed to do the service. The soonest they could get the part would be Friday, so I made another appointment and would have to come back.
We headed out to Kelberg, a couple miles south of Nürburg, where we would be staying the next five days. We were in two apartments in a house overlooking the town. It was very nice and had great parking! I thought I had taken a picture of the parking, but apparently not. Here's a shot from the dashcam showing the nice wide driveway all to myself.
