Category: the difficult moments

The Quiet Kind

For a while I always stayed at the same hotel whenever I went to the Nürburgring. This hotel came with its own pub, which was frequented by hotel guests and locals alike.  An evening in the hotel pub was always a small adventure. Behind the bar would be one of the owners, Jürgen, a bold man who spoke German and very little else but believed that if you shouted loud enough you’d always get your message across, even in a foreign language. His wife Janna ran the kitchen and was only ever seen in the pub when serving out her home-cooked meals.

About four years ago, I walked into the pub on a quiet Friday night. All the tables were empty and there were only three bar stools taken; one by Jürgen, one by the local he was talking to, and one by an older man I’d never seen before. He was sitting in silence, staring at his pint of beer, presumably listening to Jürgen’s wild story of reversing a truck onto a busy crossroads in the middle of Cologne during rush hour. When Jürgen saw me, he shouted at me to get myself a bar stool. “IT’S SO EMPTY TONIGHT THAT SITTING AT A TABLE’S STUPID. GO TALK TO ARNOLD HERE.” He pointed at the older man. “HE’S HAVING ONE OF HIS QUIET DAYS.”

I dutifully sat down next to Arnold, who didn’t say much at first. It wasn’t until Janna had brought me an apple juice that we struck up a conversation about how similar in colour our separate drinks were. After that, I ventured to ask Arnold where he was from. He said he’d been born and raised in a village down the road. Then he asked me why I was staying in the hotel. When I told him I was there to visit the Nürburgring, he smiled. “I’ve been going to the Ring since I was a boy. I love that place. These days I often work there as a volunteer.” Soon after he finished his beer and left the pub. I didn’t think much of the conversation.

On Saturday night I returned to the pub and found it very crowded. I had just sat down at the last empty table with one of Janna’s home-cooked meals, when out of nowhere somebody sat down next to me. It was Arnold. “I’m glad I found you. I wanted to show you this.” He placed an old photo album on the table. “I was a marshall at the Nürburgring in the sixties and seventies. Have you ever seen the Ring in those days?” He opened the album and revealed a wonderful collections of black-and-white, slightly faded photographs.

Some pictured people, Arnold’s friends and fellow marshalls, of whom Arnold dutifully told me their life stories. Others showed a small tent next to the Nordschleife. “This was our marshall post. It gave us good shelter from the rain, but it wasn’t very stable. One day the wind was so strong it got blown into the forest and up a tree!” He burst out laughing. “We had to climb up and get it!” The album also contained photos of concrete buildings. With Arnold’s help I managed to recognise the pit building and some other Nürburgring landmarks. It seemed he had a funny story to tell about all of them. He did so with much gusto, too.

The final photograph in the album was a shot of an empty medical stretcher. When I asked Arnold what the story behind the picture was, his face turned grey. The light in his eyes faded and then disappeared altogether. “I thought I’d thrown that away,” he muttered. “That was taken in 1976. We were marshalling on the Nordschleife when we suddenly heard a lot of noise. I’ve never forgotten what I saw that day. We tried to help, but it was so difficult. Poor Niki. No one deserves to have such an accident. I’ve never marshalled again after that. Some of my friends tried to go on, but I just couldn’t do it anymore.. Nowadays I try to make myself useful for the Ring as a volunteer, even though it’s not the same.” Arnold closed the photo album and bid me goodnight again.

I saw him a few more times after that, but he was never again as talkative as that Saturday night. Some locals later told me he lived alone with two cats and didn’t go out much. They also said he’d been suffering from depression for over fourty years, which would put the starting point of his struggle somewhere in the 1970s. I’m not sure how much Lauda’s accident had to do with Arnold’s fall into sadness, but if it was the cause of it then marshalls run even greater risks than I thought they did.

Going out with Eeriness

I love the 24 Hours of the Nürburgring. It has the same kind of friendly atmosphere you can find at a VLN event, only bigger. Much bigger. For me personally, this friendly atmosphere culminates at the end of the race when the fans give a big show of respect to the race winner, regardless of which driver/car/team/brand won or who the fans supported during the race. Everybody always stands up for the winner, everybody always claps, and everybody always cheers. Usually there are even some people with fireworks to lighten up the celebration some more.

This year, however, the finish was vastly different from what I’m used to. I doubt you would’ve noticed it if you watched the race on TV; but for those who were there, it was impossible to ignore. The friendly atmosphere was missing and, frankly, I’m not even sure if there was much respect. The whole affair felt rather cold and it has left me feeling more than a little bit confused.

At first, the final stage of the race seemed promising. The audience was on the edge of its seat, watching the fight between HTP’s Christian Hohenadel, slowed down considerably by a fuel shortage, and Black Falcon’s lightning-quick Maro Engel. When a backmarker held Engel up for a bit, there were disappointed shouts all around the grandstands. Nobody wanted the fight to end like that! Luckily, Engel soon closed the gap again and, separated by mere tenths, he and Hohenadel shot into the final lap. Thousands of voices cheered them on as they passed through the Yokohama for the last time. Only a handful of corners later, Hohenadel made a tiny error and left open the tiniest hint of a gap. Engel dived into the crack of space and… ran into Hohenadel, hard. The clash pushed Hohenadel outward and almost into the gravel. Engel shot passed, claimed P1, and ultimately victory.

On the grandstand, the clash was met with a loud “oh!”. After that, silence fell. It felt eerie to me. Silence is not what you expect on a race track that’s still active. Around me people were looking at each other, confused. At length some muttering arose around me. “Was that on purpose?” “Do you think he meant this to happen?” “Should the stewards penalise him?” The footage on the video screen of furious-looking HTP personnel didn’t help the matter much. It probably made it worse. I could clearly hear some people behind me claiming that Black Falcon was “unworthy of the victory if they think this is acceptable racing. LOSERS!”

I didn’t know what to think. And to be honest, I still don’t. I’ve known Engel for years. He’s kind as a person and professional as a driver. He’s also a fair racer. Would he crash into Hohenadel on purpose? No. Never. But his overtake was very aggressive, wasn’t it? Yes. Maybe even too aggressive? Possibly. One could even argue that it was unnecessary for him to take so much risk at that particular moment, since he was obviously faster and probably would’ve found a far safer way to pass Hohenadel in the remaining 22 (!) kilometers of the track. So where does that train of thinking lead me?  Were the stewards right to investigate? Were they right not to hand out a penalty? Was Engel simply too eager? Or was he wrong to dive into that almost-gap?

I don’t know. I really don’t.

I only know that this year’s 24 Hours of the Nürburgring-finish was the strangest finish I’ve ever seen at the event. When Engel crossed the finish line, the entire audience remained in its seat. I tried to stand up, but I got weird looks so I quickly sat down again. Nobody clapped enthusiastically. Some people didn’t even clap at all. Engel did a celebration donut and even that only resulted in a meagre applause and one or two cheers. Compared to previous years, it was a funeral. There were no fireworks, no party atmosphere, just a sense of ‘that’s it then, let’s go home’. People left the grandstands in a downbeat mood. The contrast with the happiness of the Black Falcon crew on the video screen was almost painful.

In the end I’ve decided I’m going to be happy for Engel and his comrades. Few teams work as hard towards their successes as Black Falcon does, so every member of their crew has a right to be proud. I’ve duly extended my congratulations to them and I meant every word I said. However, I’ll never forget that eerie finish. Something about it just felt wrong. A part of me is hoping that Engel, Christodoulou, Schneider, and Haupt’ll win again in 2017, so we can do this whole miserable business over. I’m sure Black Falcon won’t mind cooperating.