Group buy?
Posted: Mon Mar 18, 2013 8:09 pm
March 18th, 2013 | Featured Posts, News | 1 comment
After years of financial problems and bankruptcy talks, the legendary Nurburgring is up for sale. According to BridgeToGantry, the race track and its lock, stock and carousel are included in the sale offering.
Jens Lieser, the state-appointed liquidator, has gone on record to say that the whole thing is for sale, not just the concrete jungle of arena, museum and roller coaster. It remains unknown if the entire racing park will be sold in pieces or as a whole, but according to the same source there between 5 and 10 serious buyers.
The rumored price? In the region of only €125 million for the whole thing.
Nurburgring features a Grand Prix race track built in 1984, and a much longer old “North loop” track which was built in the 1920s around the village and medieval castle of Nürburg in the Eifel mountains. The north loop is 12.8 miles (20.8 km) long and has more than 300 meters (1,000 feet) of elevation change from its lowest to highest points. Jackie Stewart nicknamed the old track “The Green Hell,” and it is widely considered to be the most demanding and difficult purpose-built racing circuit in the world.
Originally, the track featured four configurations: the 28.265 km (17.563 mi)-long Gesamtstrecke (“Whole Course”), which in turn consisted of the 22.810 km (14.173 mi) Nordschleife (“North Loop”), and the 7.747 km (4.814 mi) Südschleife (“South Loop”). There also was a 2.281 km (1.417 mi) warm-up loop called Zielschleife (“Finish Loop”) or Betonschleife (“Concrete Loop”), around the pit area.
Between 1982 and 1983 the start/finish area was demolished to create a new GP-Strecke, and this is used for all major and international racing events. However, the shortened Nordschleife is still in use, for racing, testing and public access.
One of the original purposes of the Nordschleife was as a test track for auto manufacturers, and its demanding layout had been traditionally used as a proving ground. Weekdays are often booked for so-called Industriefahrten for auto makers and the media. With the advent of the Internet, awareness of the Nordschleife has risen in Germany and abroad, in addition to publicity in print media. In 1999, Porsche reported that their new 996 GT3 had lapped the ‘Ring in under eight minutes, and in subsequent years, manufacturers from overseas also showed up to test cars. Some high-performance models are promoted with videotaped laps published on the web, and the claimed lap times are generating discussion. Few of these supercars are actually entered in racing where the claims could be backed up.
