'ring Tossed

The point is, they risked their lives to save a monkey, and that says something hopeful about human nature. "We are all ever so close," Cheryl says of the amateur vintage sidecar community, "no matter what nationality. At the start of every race, we all look at each other and cross our fingers—we get sorta jinxy-like. Solo riders aren't like that. But sidecar racers have camaraderie."

The Thompsons' enthusiasm for amateur racing renews my desire to get behind the wheel on the 'Ring of Hell the next day. I am—how you say?—reanimated. Before leaving the vintage bike rally, I buy a Red Baron helmet and goggles from a Swiss trafficker in old-time driving gear. (His business card says, somewhat salaciously, that he also purveys "accessories in leather.") Cheryl kindly cuts a piece of fabric from the Triumph's tarpaulin, creating a white scarf that will billow behind me as I whip the Zed 8 'round the N�rburgring on a public-racing Sunday.

"I would never ride over there," Tiny says as Bob and I prepare to take our leave. "They say one a week goes over there." By goes he means dies. Then Tiny bids us a cheery farewell.

On Sunday I see it all: a man doing 110 with his dry-cleaning hanging in a back window; an Opel Kadett hammering into an S-turn while its gas cap flaps against the rear quarter panel; a guy getting airborne at Kilometer 4, his children's dolls looking impassively out the rear windshield; three teenage girls smoking in an Opel Swing hatchback, the driver applying lipstick in the rearview while idling in the starting chute; and a man in a drop-top whose hat flies off at the Flugplatz. Happily, the hat doesn't suction itself to the face of a biker behind him. Heaven knows it could.

Todd Fry, the young Air Force captain, likes to race his Honda CBR 900 RR Fireblade around the N�rburgring. "I'm not one of these guys who's an adrenaline junkie," says Fry, of Pompton Plains, N.J., roasting in his red-white-and-blue leather jumpsuit. "I've scared myself more often on the motorcycle than in an F-16. But fear is a good thing to have. Fear is life insurance out here."

If so, I am well insured. As Fry and I speak, an Opel Esona race-prepared road car blazes by on the track. A dozen Lotus Elises go into the starting chute together. A pink-and-white tour bus full of seniors from Kaiserslautern enters the raceway, hazard lights blinking absurdly. A ding-a-ling in a camper van survives two passes around the 'Ring, both times plunging into the Karussell turn. "Just pass him," advises Fry. "Everyone has a right to be out there. For the most part, you're just racing the road anyway."

Tell that to the driver of the Porsche GT2, an earlier, more aggressive version of the car whose driver wanted to drag-race Bob and me on our first day in the Alps. Tell that to the pilot of the Nissan Skyline GT-R, a Japanese-only supercar that was probably towed over here from England, street-illegal as it is. Tell that to the nutter in the purple Lamborghini Diablo. Tell that to all the mustachioed Germans doing 160 on their Italian-made Aprilia racing bikes.

"The biggest rush is when you're fully leaned over into a turn and you're scraping your knees on the track," says Mike Leong, 24, an Air Force lieutenant from Cincinnati who rides a Yamaha YZF-R1 racing bike. "When you take a turn right, you have 440 pounds and 150 horsepower and all those G's acting on you." He shows me the deep scuffing in the plastic guards sewn over the knees of his leathers. "That," he says, "is how you know you've made a good turn."

"The military isn't crazy about us doing this," says Fry, unnecessarily.

"My parents don't know I ride," says Leong, "but my brother gets SPORTS ILLUSTRATED, SO I guess they'll find out. Oh, well."