M3 dies on the Nurburgring

[Bruce Nunnally]

http://www.bmwcoop.com/2009/11/11/a-bmw-m3...on-nurburgring/

Nordschelife circuit at Nurburgring was fatal to a BMW M3 E36, which partially burned after acrossing a Mini Cooper in a high speed turn. Nordschleife circuit isn’t nicknamed in vain “Green Hell”. The number of accidents that occur on the 21 kilometers mountain long strip of asphalt in the south-west of Germany is directly proportional to the image that this circuit open to all amateurs have in the world. And the last example shows aBMW M3 E36 that has found its end in one of the turns of the Nordschleife.

The car ending was in the safety barriers, burning near the circuit. The driver was not injured and managed to get out of the car before it takes fire, and the Mini has suffered strong shock and had to leave the Nordschleife on the platform.

[Cadillac Jim]

I suppose "acrossing" is an editing artifact, beginning with something like "running across a" and ending with the phone ringing instead of a completed edit. The photo of the turn shows a dipping high-speed S-turn that looks very unforgiving at high speed, inviting the talented driver in an agile car to go airborne and alight at an angle in entering the turn and possibly in exiting it. If there is another car that is not visible in the dip, one's first view of it might be while airborne, or very nearly so.

The article doesn't say if the other car, a Mini Cooper, was damaged. It's a BMW blog, but Mini Cooper is a BMW marque these days, so I would have expected that something would have been mentioned about the fate of the Mini Cooper and its driver.

In any case, it's a dangerous sport and a dangerous course, and as the article stresses it's an open course and one may expect to encounter other cars on the course. Any car that enters this course is thus expendable. If I were driving this course with a mind toward determining a performance lap time for a car or practicing for such, I would scope out the track and conditions that day and time, and that would certainly include knowing what cars were on the track, and as much as possible their positions. There are limits to all this, of course, which is one of the reasons that the course is as dangerous as it is.

[Bruce Nunnally]

Yes. The course can be 'rented out', which is what I think the Manufacturers do for most tuning sessions. Or the track is open to anyone for entertainment runs. With a mixed track of hot cars, economy cars, and minivans, one would think that NO ONE should be driving at speed, but of course the temptation is great to do so.

[Texas Jim]

I read it as ...he hit the MINI...and then crashed into the barrier and the M3 burned...

This statement..."Mini has suffered strong shock and had to leave the Nordschleife on the platform." ... I read as the MINI was taken away by a flatbed wrecker.

[Cadillac Jim]

Uh, yes, with a little effort, I can translate that myself: "The BMW hit the Mini about two feet off the ground while careening sideways in the air after cresting the input side of a wavy S-turn, which upset the intended suspension set-up on alighting and the BMW failed to control the transit of the remainder of the S-turn, resulting in the destruction of the BMW and disrupting its driver's afternoon. The Mini was collected by a herd of diligent debris-pickers and heaped onto the bed of a truck for removal from the premises. The driver of the Mini ducked in time, retaining his capitulum but not his composure, nor his plans for the afternoon."

[Bruce Nunnally]

I don't think the BMW M crowd admits that the Mini, with its Chrysler/Rover or (since 2005) Peugeot engine, is owned by BMW.

Fair disclosure: I like the Mini all in all.