The Green Hell: A Personal Journey Through the Nürburgring’s Legendary Track

The Green Hell is what the Nordschleife of the Nürburgring is frequently called, but with one painful exception, for me it was always a little green piece of heaven. I first saw it in 1966 when on an obscure German rally a lap of the ’Ring counted as the last special stage.

My co-driver John Davenport was deposited in the magnificent old SportHotel to write and finesse our pace notes for the other stages while I set off in our rented VW Beetle to learn the track in the pouring rain. One thing I’d learned from my rally experience and which would prove even more useful at the Nürburgring was that I have an almost photographic memory for roads.

My 25 wet laps in the Beetle left me in love with the track and in awe of such names as Caracciola, Rosemeyer and Fangio and what they’d done there. I had the feeling the Nürburgring and I were going to get on very well together from the first moment I drove it. For me, it was always a wonderful place.

Vic Elford won the Nürburgring 1000Kms three times (1968, ’70, ’71). He died in 2022, aged 86

Hatzenbach

The Nordschleife is split into natural sections, making it comparatively easy to learn. Starting through Hatzenbach there’s a series of medium-fast left-right curves, originally with nasty, sharp little white kerbs where a puncture could mean the end of your race.

Quiddelbacher

There follows a swoop downhill over the Quiddelbacher bridge and up over a blind crest to Flugplatz. The front end gets light over the crest, but the car doesn’t take off (Flugplatz means ‘airport’, as there used to be one there). It’s then fast downhill to the right-hand hairpin at Aremburg before plunging down the Fuchsröhre (Foxhole). The descent is flat out but you must know where you’re going as the line is moving left and right and you’re changing direction before slight crests. In other words, you need to be aiming for the next apex before you can see it.

A massive compression pushes you down into the seat when you arrive at the bottom at what is the fastest point of the circuit, and then you shoot up the other side, being careful to anticipate the blind left-hander over a crest at the top. On public days and even some race/practice days one could almost guarantee some expensive rollovers here, performed by drivers with more enthusiasm than skill, to the point where the track once proposed to modify the corner.

This was met with fierce opposition by many, including a certain Herr Martini who owned a garage and body shop next door to the SportHotel, who argued that it would change the spirit of the Nürburgring! They won and the corner is still there. Next comes a fast, daunting, blind descent to Adenau Bridge. 40 years ago there was no run-off, no guard rail, just thick hedges beside the road, so close that at a couple of corners we’d have the nose of the car in the bushes!

Kesselchen

Then it’s very fast again, slightly uphill and through a long left bend over a crest at Kesselchen where we used to leave the ground. We would only jump about nine inches in the air, but the track then fell away at almost the same angle as the flying cars, so we’d spend 30 to 40 metres airborne before gently gliding down.

At least, that was what normally happened – until lack of aerodynamic understanding thrust its ugly head into the mix. In 1968 Jo Siffert and I won the Nürburgring 1000Kms in a Porsche 908 Coupé. The open 908/2 was the car of choice for Porsche in ’69, but Jo and I had a new version nicknamed the ‘Flounder’ with flat aerodynamic bodywork for the ’Ring, and on one practice lap I arrived at Kesselchen, gently took off and continued going up…and up… until I passed over the head of photographer Rainer Schlegelmilch who was lying in the grass beside the road taking pictures, and landed in the bushes beside him!

Caracciola-Karussel

Next is probably the most difficult and intense part of the Nürburgring – the Caracciola-Karussel, so named because although it was always there, Caracciola is believed to be the first man to have raced through the banking. Once again, you must know exactly where it is and how to enter it. If not, you’ll probably become part of the scenery. It feels as though you’ve jumped into a pit and then, if you do it right, you’re almost fired out the other side.

Wipperman

In the 1969 grand prix, driving a McLaren M7B, I made a lousy start and Mario Andretti and Jean-Pierre Beltoise passed me before the first corner. After Wipperman comes a long right-hand corner over a crest taken at about 100mph where Andretti slid off the road, took off two wheels on a fence, one of which I hit before somersaulting over a hedgerow and landing upside down in the trees. I had a broken nose and smashed shoulder, but it didn’t diminish my love for the ’Ring.

Pflanzgarten

There follows another of those special ’Ring stretches, Pflanzgarten – very fast, but only for those who know where they’re going. Top gear, flat out – in a 908 that meant about 180mph, more in a 917, and like the Fuchsröhre the next apex is always just over a crest so you must position the car before you see it.

Pflanzgarten also brings back memories. In 1970, although Porsche had never seriously thought of the 917 as a ‘Nürburgring’ car, Siffert and I did back-to-back tests with a 917 and 908/3. Jo was in the 908, me the 917. We did a couple of slow noisy laps to frighten away the wildlife and then on my first fast lap, coming over a flat-out crest at Pflanzgarten at about 180mph, sitting in the middle of the road was an eagle. He flapped his wings a couple times and was about two feet off the ground when I hit him, destroying the front of the car and the windshield. Back in the pits Helmut Bott and the other engineers and mechanics wanted to know where I’d gone off and only after driving them round and finding the poor bird did they believe it could do so much damage.

Brünchen

Two corners later used to be another photographers’ dream – Brünchen. It means ‘Little Bridge’, although it was in fact a humpback bridge where we’d normally do a hop in the air, come back to earth and drive on – until 1969 when Jo and I arrived in our ‘Flounders’ which took off until they were almost vertical. We hit the ground with the rear jacking points before falling forward onto the wheels. Needless to say we reverted to the older, rounder car for the race.

Schwalbenschwanz

After that comes a dive down into Schwalbenschwanz, the little Karussel, up the hill and through two fast right-handers on to what was 40 years ago a long roller-coaster straight, but which has also been de-fanged so it’s now fairly flat, bringing us to the end of a lap.

From all the exciting experiences I had at the Nürburgring one race stands out in my mind – the 1970 500Kms where, in an underpowered Chevron B16, from sixth on the grid I forced my way past a horde of Abarths and pulled away in the last couple of laps to win by over a minute from Arturo Merzario.

As Crocodile Dundee would say, “That’s a race track”!