'ring Tossed

Nowhere is the automobile more talismanic than in Germany, the country that gave us the concept of wanderlust, the word fahrvergn�gen ("joy of driving"), the world's top driver (F/1 king Michael Schumacher) and high-performance automakers Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Porsche and Audi (as well as mid-performance automakers Opel and Volkswagen, and nonperformance automaker Trabant). Americans think of themselves as car crazy, but they don't know the half of it. " Germany is a car culture," says Tackett, the American 'Ring veteran. " America is a drive-through culture of convenience."

"In America cars are appliances," adds U.S. Air Force captain Todd Fry, 26, a motorcycle-riding F-16 pilot based at Spangdahlem Air Force base, an hour's ride from the N�rb�rgring. "Here, cars are the objects of passion."

So Bob and I continue hammering toward the village of N�rburg. Two hours south of the Green Hell, when we cross the Rhine at Karlsruhe, a black Mercedes SL 500 convertible with full body kit and mag tires appears suddenly in our rearview. Bob takes little notice, for he is dozing, an alarming prospect given that he is—at the same time—driving 100 mph with the top down.

In our cramped cockpit (we will later discover) Bob's right leg is mashed against a button that activates his electronic seat warmer. It is 95� on this afternoon, and Bob is being bum-toasted by red-hot coils hidden beneath the black leather upholstery of his seat. He is being lulled into a coma by heatstroke and highway hypnosis when the Benz—headlights strobing madly—gets on our back bumper like one of those KEEP HONKING, I'M RELOADING stickers so popular in the U.S.

We are both nodding like junkies when the horn sounds behind us. Bob snaps to attention. In a panic, he reflexively jerks the wheel. We career into the right lane, and the Benz passes. But as soon as it does, the middle-aged maniac in the driver's seat (Bob is now calling him a "plonker") maneuvers the Merc into the right lane, decelerates and begins to ride our front bumper. After 200 yards of this mouse-and-cat game, he exits the autobahn slowly, so that we can see him pointing at the exit sign as we pass. The man is laughing through his elaborate mustache. (The men—and not a few women—of this German region all have mustaches like the CBS golf announcer Gary McCord.) The plonker keeps pointing at the exit sign—a sign, we now see, for the Daimler-Benz complex in Worth. The man in the Merc, evidently in the employ of that automaker, grins as if he's just won something. Perhaps he has.

Still we're 150 miles from the Green Hell. If drivers on the autobahn are hypercompetitive and brand-loyal, what kind of psychotics await us at the N�rburgring? "They are people who enjoy the sheer pleasure of driving," says BMW event manager Werner Briel when we pitch up at the 'Ring's parking lot. "They are concerned not only with velocity but with...style? Then, holding on to his homburg, he leans over and strokes his sweatered pet dachshund, Katya.

The N�rburgring drivers, in turn, attract an audience of rubberneckers almost as interesting as the motorists themselves. "They come to see the cars, they come to see the crashes," says Reinhard H. Queckenberg, whose name sounds like that of a Groucho Marx character but in fact belongs to the owner of a small racetrack not far from the N�rburgring. "It is living theater."

The elevation changes 1,000 feet along the track's 14 miles. The road rolls out, like a rucked red carpet, over hill and dale and through primeval forest. Three towns and a 12th-century castle are contained within the N�rburgring's infield. But then you have already, no doubt, seen the circuit: Countless car commercials are filmed on it, the kind that carry the disclaimer, PROFESSIONAL DRIVER ON A CLOSED TRACK. DO NOT TRY THIS YOURSELF.

Yet, every year, thousands of drivers do try it. Each of them pays 21 deutsche marks—about $9.50—per lap and joins the 100-plus vehicles that are allowed on the loop at any one time. For most of its length, the road is little more than two lanes wide. Unlike modern F/l circuits, the N�rburgring doesn't have a thousand yards of run-off area beyond its shoulders. Rather, it has no runoff area. If you leave the road, you collide with a tree or a cyclone fence or steel guardrails. Crash through the guardrails, and you, or your estate, must pay to have it replaced.

One ambulance and one flatbed wrecker truck are forever on standby at the 'Ring's starting line. Drivers sign no waiver and are given no warnings. "This could never happen in the States," says Roger Scilley of Laguna Beach, Calif., whom we meet 10 minutes after arriving. "Lawyers wouldn't allow it. But over here, you're responsible for your own actions."