I was reading a car magazine the other night and was looking at spy pictures of upcoming ultra high performance cars from Japan and the U.S. All the pictures were taken at the Nürburgring in Germany. It brought back memories of driving that very intimidating track years ago. It will date me, but I would say that driving a lap of the Nürburgring is better than an "E-ticket" ride at Disneyland.

What is the Nürburgring, and what is so special about it? Well, something, because manufacturers from Japan and the U.S. test their cars there. Its testing heritage comes from the fact that it has been used for years as a prime test site for BMW and Porsche. And all those Japanese and U.S. manufacturers (read GM) want to make BMWs and Porsches -- right?

The "Nürburg-Ring" was built by Hitler and completed in 1927. It was meant to showcase German engineering talent and be an answer to the street road circuit, Targa Florio, and the real race track Monza, in Italy. As typical of Hitler, it was a huge undertaking. The track itself winds through the Eifel mountains about 32 miles southwest of Cologne (Köln). It was built in two loops, the Südschleife (south loop) of 7.747 km. That's 4.82 miles. That's rather long for a modern race track. On the other hand, the Nordschleife (north loop) -- the one that winds through the hills and has the entire town of Nürburg inside it -- was 22.810 km. That is an astonishing 14.2 miles long.

The full double ring was used for the German Grand Prix until 1939. Motorcycle and minor races used just the Südschleife. The pre-war master drivers became known as Ringmasters. They were Rucolf Caracciola, Tazio Nuvolari, and Bernd Rosemeyer.

After World War II, the Nordschleife was christened "the Green Hell" by Jackie Stewart because it was narrow and ran right through the forest. It became more and more dangerous as race cars got faster and faster. The Südschleife fell into disuse and wasn't maintained very well. The Nordschleife lap record of 8 minutes was set in 1970 with Phil Hill driving the Ferrari 156 Formula 1 car. As a reference, production cars today easily lap faster than 8 minutes, though the track is wider with better runoff areas (make that some runoff areas).

In 1970, Piers Courage was killed during the Formula 1 race, so the drivers threatened to boycott future races there unless improvements were made. They were. Armco safety barriers were installed and the track was widened and smoothed. With the widening process, it also became a bit straighter.

Formula 1 races continued until 1973. Safety was improved by removing the jumps along the main straight -- and widening it. Three more races were held until 1976, but even more demands by the Formula 1 drivers were impossible to meet. Niki Lauda set the Formula 1 record of under 7 minutes in 1975. He also was seriously injured in the 1976 race -- the last F1 race held on the Nordschleife. It was determined to be too "dangerous" to drive there. Well, that is a convenient one-word reason, but it is more complex than that. The drivers never liked the Nordschleife because it was difficult, if not impossible, to remember in great detail every turn of the track, like they do at more conventional circuits. It was also impossible to station emergency crews close enough to every point on the track where an accident might happen. There just aren't that many crews and equipment available.

As an aside, the Südschleife was compeletely "remodeled" in 1984 to turn it into a modern Formula 1 circuit -- read boring. Many fans inside and outside Germany named the new track the Eifelring, Ersatzring, or Green Party Ring because it didn't deserve to be called the Nürburgring.

Today there are several races using the Nordschleife, and some combine it with the new F1 south circuit. The premier race is the 24 Hours Nürburgring weekend in mid-June. Some 200 plus production cars (modified only for safety) race in several classes. They range from small 100 horsepower cars to 700 horsepower turbo Porsches. There obviously is a lot of passing. It isn't uncommon to bring in more than 200,000 spectators. That may sound like a lot, but given that there are 14 plus miles of track, there is plenty of spectating room.

The best part of the Nordschleife is that you and I can drive our own cars on it. Just pony up 20 Euros (about $27 these days) and you're off for a lap. Multiple lap tickets reduce the price. Alas, with so much interest from the manufactuers, there aren't as many days available as there used to be. The track web site www.nuerburgring.de lists the days available, but not that far into the future. It is wise to plan ahead, though, because there isn't much to see as a tourist near the track. Oh, there is the Nürburgring Museum, which really is spectacular if you're interested in race cars.

As a point of reference, I remember driving around a couple of Americans in a loaned BMW. As they got into the car, their comment was, "Oh, this is just like Lime Rock". I just said something like, "Well, we'll see about that." They agreed after finishing just about a third of a lap that it was nothing like Lime Rock. There just isn't anything like it, not when it was built and not today.

You also can "drive" the Nürburgring on PlayStation 2 (Gran Turismo 4), Xbox, and PC.

Or if you're in Germany and want to see the track in person, but are intimidated by driving your rental car on the track (usually with other traffic), you can ride a bus around the track. That really sounds boring to me. But... there also is another option: The Nürburgring Taxi! What might you think the Nürburgring Taxi is? Those cars are supplied by BMW and are current M5s. The "taxi driver" is a very talented driver. The price is 185 Euros for up to three people in the car. That's about $235 and would be well worth the price. An E-ticket indeed! Oh, I am not kidding about the name either, the proper name is "BMW Ring-Taxi Service Line". Call for reservations. The rides are available week days from 10am to noon.

Recent sightings at the Nürburgring have been the new Toyota and Honda high-performance coupes -- the Supra replacement and NSX replacement. You can see the spy photos all over. Chevrolet does a lot of testing of the Corvettes there, and the latest spy photos show the new generation Cadillac CTS-V being tested. There also have been photos of the upcoming Porsche Panamera being tested there. Also the new Nissan Skyline GT-R tested a lot at the Nürburgring.

But why? The reason for the Germans is that it is a test track that is relatively cheap to use and saves the cost of the manufacturer building their own. Certainly all kinds of turns and elevation changes are part of one lap. One thing missing is bumps or a rough road. My experience was that the track is glass smooth -- maybe that is overstating it, but it certainly some of the best concrete around.

So that is why the Germans use it today and have used it for years. Why do the Japanese and Americans. As I said before, it is partly because the Germans do and given the evidence that German cars really drive well, there must be something there that allows the engineers to design suspensions and steering well for the road. I also think that being seen there gives credibility to their testing process, plus it is a good place to test, even if you have to fly your cars and engineers there to do the testing. It is known that GM has built copies of parts of the Nürburgring into their own testing facility in Michigan.

The top photo shows the relationship between the new Formula 1 circuit (GP-Strecke) and the Nordschleife. They share the pits and pit straight -- and across from the pits, the Nürburgring Hotel.

The bottom photo shows the current Nordschleife with all the "areas" of the track named. Unlike our modern track, where the individual corners are named, just general areas are named at the Nürburgring. This is where I am supposed to tell you about the most famous part of the track. Alas, I can't imagine what it would be. Perhaps it is the "Caroussel", which is a sharp 180 steeply banked dish. There isn't much interesting about it. The really interesting parts are the completely blind turns where you need to remember (well!) what follows, or you can really be in trouble.

Unfortunately this is the best photo of the legendary BMW CSL racer jumping in 1974. The track has been smoothed there, so you get a bit light, but no jumps anymore.