What is the Nurburgring and where is it? Nurburgring Information

You might have heard about the Nurburgring but aren't too sure what it is. Most of us that have heard of the Nurburgring know that it's used a lot of times in determining which cars hold the fastest lap times there. The Nurburgring has coming a staple in automotive performance and is used as a benchmark to determine which cars have true all out performance of power, handling and braking, all the components that make up a true sports car.

The Nurburgring is a 13 mile race track in Germany that has been used from manufactures testing their cars, trying to break Nurburgring lap times of competitors, to enthusiasts bringing their own cars, or renting a car there, to test their limits of what a car can do on an ultimate race track. The Nurburgring has 73 turns that test your brakes, suspension and power, and has been described as one of the most demanding race tracks in the world. Nurburgring construction started in 1925 and was opened in 1927 and to this day is available to the public.

The Nurburgring used to be host to the German Grand Prix until 1976 when a crash ended it's use for this purpose. Today, it's still used by most of the manufactures to do testing of their sports cars, and in the event that the manufacture doesn't test their cars here, you can bet a lot of magazines and enthusiasts push cars to the limit here for them.

Being 13 miles long, the Nurburgring is a long race track, and the good thing is that you can bring a passanger along with you for the ride. There are many hotels and places to stay and eat near the track so many enthusiasts make a vacation out of a trip to the race track. If you fly out there to visit the famous Nurburgring, there are a few places that allow you to rent a car of your choice that you can beat up on the track. My suggestion would be to go there for the fun and experience of being on a famous race track instead of trying to break the world record. It is a very fast and dangerous track and many people have lost their lives on it.

Many people ask how the Nurburgring got it's name. It's pretty simple actually. The motorsports complex is built around a German village called Nurburg. Since it rings it, they called it the Nurburgring.

There are such races as the Nurburgring 24 which is 24 hours of straight Nurburgring racing that tests the limits of man and machine. It's very exciting but not for the faint of heart.

If you want to go and check this out for yourself, but aren't too confident in your driving abilities (it's ok to be a newbie), a BMW dealer offers what they call a "Ring Taxi" service where you can ride in a BMW M3 as a passanger with a professional race car driver. This will allow you to experience the Nurburgring much faster than you might by yourself.

Many manufactures claim to be the fastest, but the true test is to go out there and get an official lap time. Manufactures go back and forth, but as of the writing of this post, the fastest currently is the Dodge Viper SRT10 ACR. You can see a video of the record breaking run here:

The video is of a Dodge Viper SRT10 ACR running the lap in 7 minutes and 12 seconds. Usually manufactures give full disclosure as to what kind of tires they run, and also if the car is a production unit or a full race unit.

Hopefully this answers many of our readers questions on the Nurburgring and gives an idea of what this famous race track is all about.