back to previous pagePorscheball 2010 Review by Paul Seagrave
This, for me, was the big trip of the year with members from the region joining the Porscheshop Porscheball organised by Rob Clarke of PBC Motorsport. We started on the Friday morning 7am at Warwick Services and by the time we got to Dover we had 20 Porsches in the convoy. 
After a 2 hour stint on the ferry to Dunkirk we were in France, a quick stop for fuel then across France, Belguim and into Germany arriving at the hotel by 8.30 pm.
The next morning we were up early for our safety briefing then it was off to the ring. The hotel was on the edge of Bonn so we had a lovely 25 mile drive through some superb scenery surrounding the ring on Porsche driving roads. We stopped at a viewing point at the top end of the ring to take in the atmosphere, then it was off to the start area to get some entry tickets and do some laps of the ring. On public days the ring is a one way toll road and subject to German motoring laws. You can only overtake on the left and if you are involved in an accident on the ring the police will come straight away and apportion blame.
During the day the ring was closed 5 times due to accidents so it is a case of obey the rules and keep your wits about you. Having watched Alan and Carol Bennett take off in their 944 I decided it was time to have a go myself, 
although you try to go fast you don’t know which way the track will go and you have much faster cars coming by I found the best way was keep to the right and watch the mirrors. I found the carousel with its 30 degree banking interesting then eventually we came back to the start/finish line. We then drove down to a village called Adenau which the track passes through on a flyover(only in Germany) for some lunch. We then spent the afternoon in the car park at the ring which is Porsche heaven. Walter Rohl was there demonstrating a Panamera with Bilstein Suspension. We had a few more laps and then back to the hotel.
On the Sunday the track was closed for some racing but this turned out to be a bonus as it was an 8 hour endurance race with lots of Porsches in. We spent the morning watching from two vantage points then we went back to Adenau for lunch and watched the Monza grand prix on the restaurants big TV. 
During the grand prix the heavens opened at the ring and when we went back to view by the flyover a lot of the cars had crash damage from the barriers. I then decided we should get a closer look at the cars so a small group of us made our way to the grand prix circuit where the pits were located. We were just in time to see a yellow 911 take the chequered flag.
On the Monday we had a look at the disused north loop of the ring which has been untouched since 1929. It was interesting as there were no safety barriers only trees. Then we had a run through the national forest on the way to the ferry. This was a well organised trip by Rob Clarke and the company of fellow Porsche enthusiasts was great, the outstanding thing to me was the sheer number of Porsches in the area. A white GT3 seems to be the weapon of choice.
Many thanks to Paul Seagrave for this review.