'ring Tossed

Which isn't to say that there are no warnings whatsoever at the N�rburgring. No, all along the perimeter of the track are signs that shriek, LEBENSGEFAHR! (Mortal Danger!), but those are for the spectators—and the ones behind the fencing, at that. There are no words for those race fans, like the four teenagers we'll encounter on our second day at the track, who watch the festivities, with a cooler full of beverages, from inside the guardrails. Imagine enjoying the Indy 500 while standing against the wall of Turn 2. Now imagine doing so when all the drivers are amateurs.

But then Germans are, generally speaking, better drivers than Americans. "In Germany," says Louis Goldsman, a 57-year-old retiree from Mission Viejo, Calif., on pilgrimage at the 'Ring, "you're required to attend a driving academy for four months before you can get a license. It costs the equivalent of $2,500 to obtain a license, and you can't get one until you're 18. Insurance is more expensive. All this makes for more serious drivers. The average 18-year-old German girl can outdrive the typical testosterone-polluted American male any day."

Goldsman has come to the N�rburgring with a group from the BMW Club of America. At 10 a.m. Eastern time on Monday, March 6, many of the club's 55,000 members called a toll-free number in hopes of getting one of the 72 available spots on the trip. Richard George speed-dialed the number 240 times from Dallas before securing one of the berths, which sold out in three hours. The trip cost each driver $2,500, plus airfare, and required him (or her) to have attended at least three high-performance driving schools. "We're freaks," says a woman who underscores the point by giving her name as Robyn McNutt. "Freaks."

The club has rented the track for three days. The first two days were devoted to learning the line of the course, mile by mile. Bob and I stumble upon these people on the final day, as they are grimly preparing to put the pedal to the metal and make their "graded lap" of the N�rburgring, at full speed, as expert judges stationed about the circuit make notations on their clipboards.

"We will be graded on a scale of one to 10, one being good and 10 being what the Germans call totalkaos" says Tackett, the club's best driver and de facto leader, in a pre-lap speech to his fellow motorists. "Now, you've all had some hot laps in practice, maybe even incurred the need for some laundry attention. You might want to slow it down a little this time: I have pictures of a car that rolled here to show you that this is serious business."

"Two years ago," whispers Dan Chrisman, a 53-year-old from Austin, "one driver on this trip took out 30 feet of fencing and wound up on his top in a BMW 328."

The driver of that car suffered nothing more than a cut, and his passenger walked away uninjured, but not all cars are that safe. Thirteen kilometers into the clockwise course is an infamous hairpin turn called the Karussell. It is a concrete former drainage ditch that drivers plunge into, leaving the track looming above them, like a paved wave threatening to break through the right-hand windows. "I have seen families in camper vans out on the course," says Chrisman, a three-time veteran of the circuit. "I've gone into the Karussell and looked above me to see a double-decker tour bus with little old ladies on the upper level looking down at me through their cameras."

There will be two hours of public racing after the BMW club completes its graded laps on this Friday evening, and already some heavy artillery is massing in the parking lot: Lancias, Porsches, Mercs, Ferraris, Vipers, a Lamborghini Diablo, a rare Dutch Donkervoort, a Fiat Uno with valve springs popping through the bonnet. Many cars have but a single seat, with a racing harness. There are racing motorcycles of every description, their leathered riders doing push-ups in the parking lot. "Those bikes," points out Mike Valente, a veteran English motor-sports photographer, "will be going 180 miles an hour on the final straightaway. On two wheels. Each wheel has a footprint the size of your shoe."

I am told to expect madness when the track opens to the public. "The Germans who live locally," says Tom Doherty, 41, an Indianapolis native who has attended every Indy 500 since 1966, "are all driving souped-up BMW M3s"—modified racing cars—"and they drive blindingly fast out here."

But before the public can have a go, Tackett has agreed to take me as a passenger on his graded lap. Everyone tells me that I'm lucky, that Tackett is the best American driver on site. But bad juju is confronting us everywhere as I hop into Tackett's BMW 523i sedan and we make our way to the starting chute.