Top Gear films at the Nürburgring...

[Verrückt]

It was a fantastic day at the 'ring this past Saturday. My car ran great and I had no real problems with it (this is the BMW for those who don't know). It was the first time using my new Gtech Pro RR for track data logging. I didn't time or video the lap specifically, but from the data it looks to be about 10 minutes flat. Considering I went easy on the brakes (you can see by the braking figures. Full braking is about 0.8-0.9 g's) and there was a bit of traffic, it went pretty well. My co-driver turned about 11:30.

Here's some interesting figures from my lap...

Max left cornering: 0.947g
Max right cornering: 0.970g
Max braking: -0.657g
Max acceleration: 0.525g

As the figures show, we have the handling pretty well sorted out. Next we might add a stiffer rear sway bar and a rear differential with more lock, but it's not bad as is.

Here is a map based off of the data.

Red zones are braking, green is acceleration, and blue is coasting.

Here is a comparison between my lap and my co-driver's lap.

I am black and he is red.

The data is nice because you can zoom in and analyze specific sections. It can be also played back in realtime showing RPM, cornering, acceleration, and more. When I take a video, I can synchronize the data with the video which could be pretty cool.

Now on to the much cooler part. The Top Gear crew was at the 'ring filming for a show. Those who are regular fans of the series will remember a video where Jeremy drives a Jaguar on the ring with Sabine. He has the goal of beating 10 minutes. He barely eeks by with a time of 9:59 and Sabine says she can beat that time in a van. If anyone can, it's her.

Well, they were back today to try. It really was funny and the Top Gear guys are a good bunch. Jeremy Clarkson wasn't there, but I did spend some time talking with Richard Hammond. They were there with a totally stock Ford Transit diesel van. It maybe has 140 hp, probably less. In efforts to make it faster, they stripped basic items out of it and duck taped the body seams. They used the Zackspeed Viper as a chase vehicle and camera car to flush everyone out of the way and get footage. Momentum is obviously important when you're dealing with van racing. It was absolutely hilarious to see Sabine dominating with the Transit. She was barreling though the Adenauer Forst with massive body roll barely keeping it on 4 wheels.

At the end of the day, I checked back with the crew and she had posted a best time of 10:08. This wasn't quite as fast as Jeremy, but all hope was not lost yet. The team also had a VW van available to them which had more horsepower and much better suspension than the Transit Cargo van. Soon this one was stripped too and off they went. I had to go home at this point, but I'm quite sure they will be able to go under 10 minutes in a van. I can't wait for the episode to show.

Crappy pic of me and Richard

Pics from Top Gear filming

The rest of the day's pics from on and off the track

[Blackmilk]

You're a lucky man, nice pic with Richard

[CRISTIAN]

I have that device and never use it, my car sucks ass.

[Nortad]

I bet they did do under 10sec with the VW van, if they used a VW LT45.
The Transit is FWD with 140hp, while the VW LT is RWD with 158hp.
It´s the same as the Merc Sprinter 316.
My Dad has one of the, and those f***ers move fast.

[proxlamus©]

10 min van.. not 10 sec.. LoL

I bet they did do under 10sec with the VW van, if they used a VW LT45.

[FocusZTS]

a little while ago my car was getting bad milage and it felt like it was down on hp like a dead cyl
the guys at ford treated me like im an idiot and like i dont know what im talking about
so enter G-Tech Pro
after some calibration it turns out my car was putting down a whopping 75whp
this confirms my predictions.... so i took it back to the dealership and complained about the bad milage and lack of power (not that it has any power to start out with) and again "Your car is running fine" and "we know what we are talking about.....we are the mechanics..."
so i told them that it was down one cyl and they passed it off as "some dumb kid who doesnt know what he is talking about" so i handed them the printout and told them to fix it. turns out a clip on the throttle cabe broke and the cable fell down under the #3 sparkplug wire and every time you powered into it the engine would torque back and lift the #3 sparkplug wire off of the coil pack which led to a corroded connection. so under normal circumstances it would arc and run on 3.5 cyl then when foot down it went to 3 cyl....

needless to say after that they dont argue with me about anything that is wrong with my car especailly after i called them morons and told them that i know more about their product than they do lol i was mad

[FRanck Bullitt]

Originally Posted by Boyd

You're a lucky man, nice pic with Richard

+1 ...no for you

[Sp3aK]

That's awsome and hilarious

What kind of Jag was clarkson driving? And how was that Van faster than your BMW? lol

[Verrückt]

Originally Posted by Sp3aK

That's awsome and hilarious

What kind of Jag was clarkson driving? And how was that Van faster than your BMW? lol

Jeremy was in the Jaguar S-type diesel with 206 hp.

No worries, the BMW is faster than the Ford Transit.

I can't drive the BMW at 100% until I upgrade the brakes. The'll probably catch fire otherwise.

Sabine can beat most cars on the track though with the van. She's one of the best female drivers in the world and certainly one of the best Nürburgring drivers in the world.

I'll put it this way, I bet she'd beat you in the van even if you had a 2 minute head start.

[Verrückt]

A photographer sent this to me.

[Nortad]

Originally Posted by proxlamus©

10 min van.. not 10 sec.. LoL

Yeah, 10 seconds. Those VW´s panelvans are amazing! They do mid 6sec on the dragstrips all the time... jk...

Yeah, I meant 10min, sorry about the mistake...

[Verrückt]

As a reminder, this episode is on today. Should be good.

[rydinturbo]

nice did u ever race your s4 at that track~?

[Verrückt]

Originally Posted by rydinturbo

nice did u ever race your s4 at that track~?

Not yet...I will one of these days. I need to be more comfortable with the track before I take something as fast as my S4 out there.