Second, it doesn’t translate the elevation changes well at all. Holy. Balls. I don’t recall the name of the length of track, but basically you climb up and all of a sudden you’re on a rollercoaster ride plummeting to Earth. I’ve ran practice laps in GT5 over and over and I never got the sense of just how much the elevation moves around on you. For you first-timers, please be careful on the crests, there might be a drop waiting for you on the other side.

Third, the game’s AI is built to always race. The game’s AI never slows down on a turn because of a yellow flag from an official. Basically what I’m saying is, the game does not reflect open public sessions. Do not confuse what you’re going to do with racing. It is not racing. It is driving fast with other people driving fast. GT5 cannot prepare you for checking your rear view every 5 seconds to see if a faster car is coming so you can pull to the right with your blinker on signaling him to pass. It can’t prepare you for needing to pass a slower car at the right parts of the track, especially when a Viper ACR is coming up on your Clio. That took a little adjusting as I had only driven in Germany for about an hour previous to driving on the ring and it seems their normal driving rules still apply on the ring…it is a public toll road after all.

In any case, I finally made my way around the Nürburgring. Apparently, with all the slowing down for people to pass me and a yellow flag that was encountered, I managed to get around in less than 15min. Now that may seem like a long time, but it was my first time, I was in a 200hp FF which I am not at all acquainted with, I had to slow down in turns where faster cars were trying to pass, etc. Frankly, I’d guessed 15min, so to hear that I was under that time given the conditions made me pretty happy. Not that I was timing myself, but I just checked the time before and after. You’ll read everywhere not to time yourself as you’ll likely try to beat a certain time and end up beating your head on the steering wheel when you hit a guardrail at 150kmph.

At the end of the day, I still had 3 laps on my card. Craig was very gracious and bought the 3 laps from me (I live in California) to help balance the cost for the day’s experience. I would definitely recommend RSR for anyone who can’t/won’t bring their own car. The guys are great to work with and the cars are top notch. That little Clio felt like a beast for having just 200hp (close gear ratios I think) and cornered quite nicely.

So I’ll be crossing a lap around the Nürburgring off my bucket list now. But I’ve decided to make an addition to the bottom of that list…a single day with at least 2 laps next time.