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Back visiting a very old friend… it’s been a while!

We wake this morning at the Dorint hotel at the Nurburgring, a hotel we last visited 20 years ago during one of the early Italian Job events. Not a massive amount has changed other than some of the staff. There are still cars on some of the floors and the motoring heritage of the ‘Ring’ is evident for all to see everywhere in the hotel. Last time we were here one of our teams thought signing the ceiling in the Cockpit Bar would be a good idea. It wasn’t’. It upset our hosts and to be honest, I sensed a teeny bit of that still lingering….. Maybe that was just me though! Interesting Dorint Hotel Fact: Smoking is permitted and it seems encouraged in the Cockpit Bar. I smell like an ashtray this morning and quite a few of our teams are sporting genuine hacking coughs.

The drive here from Spa was really a very short hop, but the weather turned a tad along the way which made the going a little tougher for some of the minis. A number of them did though manage to blag their way onto Spa for a cheeky photo memento;

All teams got here safely and only a few required the TLC of the service crew just to tickle their tummies and make sure they were all tickety boo. The most challenging issue was an over extending pair of windscreen wipers on a beautiful Mark 1 Mini Cooper which challenged both Gareth and Paul momentarily. A solution though was found and pretty soon the wipers were again behaving themselves.

We went for dinner last night in the Pistonklaus restaurant which is owned by the family of Sabine (she from Top Gear fame). The whole place was a homage to Motorsport and to be fair the food was pretty good too. Most teams decided to stay in the hotel for dinner though and by all accounts it was pretty good fare too.

We have rain today here at the Nurburgring as we depart for Munich so a steady pace ahead of the service van route will see all teams make the 350 mile journey in 6 or so hours. We’re heading on even further though to Trento for some final preparation ahead of the entire group of participating Minis arriving on Thursday midday for scrutineering and registration.

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