Fast and Loose: There?s No Oversight for Nurburgring Lap-Time Claims
Numbers don’t lie. They defy interpretation. That’s one reason why car-obsessed souls pore over performance numbers such as horsepower, acceleration times, and lateral grip with religious zeal. We’ve all watched with varying levels of envy, awe, and stupefaction at how ?Ringmeisters tame what Sir Jackie Stewart once called the Green Hell. The German Nürburgring’s Nordschleife, a 12.9-mile hilly, twisty, and frighteningly fast ribbon of asphalt through the Eifel Mountains, has become the go-to benchmark for sports-car and supercar goodness, with the barometer of performance being the clock.
But who’s in charge" Who is scrutineer of the ?Ring-running cars for technical compliance to production-car standards, as would exist in organized competition under FIA, SCCA, or IMSA" How do we know that they retain their production street trim and tune with legitimate production-issue parts" Lastly?and here’s where the lap times start to bend under the weight of absolute truth?who is responsible for the official timing of the lap" No one. All the timing numbers and stats on the Nordschleife spreadsheet for a claimed “road-car lap record” must carry an asterisk with a caveat: “unofficial.”
A fast lap around the Nordschleife means street cred on Mullholland, the Tail of the Dragon, over the Stelvio Pass, up the Hakone hill-climb in Japan, and even at your local Cars and Coffee gathering?anywhere gearheads ...
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