So you want to drive on the Nürburgring track

Yeesh. I winced the whole length of the video. And those crashes weren't as bad as what could have happened, considering how fast drivers could go on that course.

Note that there are no numbers on the cars. This is not a competition, merely people out playing Walter Mitty.

If you really want to do it, Rent Race Car is the company my husband rented from. Very professional service and well-prepared cars. At the time, he got the cheapest car they had, a Suzuki Swift.

He was on the Nordschleife with a large variety of vehicles including motorcycles, street cars and my two personal favorites: a vintage Mercedes convertible with a bunch of older German guys and a fire department van full of fire fighters.

As the first FAQ in the link says, during the Touristenfahrten, pretty much anyone can pay their money and drive the Green Hell. At that time it is a one way German toll road. The Nordschleife is not a modern racetrack no matter what's going on there. The FAQs provide excellent information on the track, driving rules and requirements, costs, and more.

About the video, to me it looked like a pretty normal accident for the road conditions, even for experienced racecar drivers.

Here's a story about a guy's $23,000 claim for rental car insurance being denied because he drove it there.

race car driver wannabe

Someone didn't do their homework and paid a hefty price for that.

Yes, street rental car agencies supposedly patrol the track parking lots to see if their cars are parked there. The agencies strictly forbid driving their cars on the Nordschleife.

That's why there are companies, including the one we used, that rent cars specifically to drive on the track. With those rentals you pay for insurance in case you wreck the car. It's all covered in the rental prices.

That's also why all of us going at the same time parked our street rentals at the Rent Race Car facility some kilometers away from the track and caravanned to the track in the track rentals. We followed the owner. He took all of his renters and their minions on one lap around the track at speed so the drivers could see what they were up against. I was the leftover, so he took me around by myself.

My husband had spent hours at his computer at home watching an in-car video of a drive around the track and trying to learn it as best he could from a desk chair. But driving fast legally and racing is a hobby and a passion for him. He wanted to be prepared.

Lo, in retrospect, it does rather look like I was slamming your husband! Sorry about that. It was not my intention. The company he rented from looks great. The guy who just thought he'd just rent a BMW and go for a spin clearly did not research enough.

No worries. I did find the article interesting.

I'm not sure how other people's credit card coverage works and I don't have my little cheat sheet on that with me for ours, but I seem to remember that there is a whole host of activities that are not covered, including some sporting ones.

I'd expect that the fine print on the rental car contract said that the car could not be driven on the track. And that the fine print in the guy's credit card coverage had similar exclusions to ours.

No matter where you're driving, at home or abroad, there are plenty of opportunities to make errors in judgment and subsequently have to pay for them.