Nurburgring may be going under
The world-famous German circuit of Nurburgring is in need of about 13 million Euros in order to avoid bankruptcy, as reports from the website Jalopnik and the German publication Rhein-Zeitung say.
It would appear that the motorsport complex which also includes the 20.8 kilometer Nordschleife circuit – famous for its challenging and quite dangerous turns.
The complex was very well cared for by the state government, it invested over 500 million Euros into the complex which resulted into the creation of an amusement park, hotels and even a shopping mall which opened in 2009, but the complex has been under private investors since May 2012, and the European Union doesn’t seem interested in bailing them out.
Even with this cloud overhead it is being reported that the 2012 schedule of events will continue without any change, but that of 2013 is quite unknown.
The Nurburgring is famously or better yet, infamously known as ‘The Green Hell’ by former racer Sir Jackie Stewart and it was built between 1925 and 1927. Its history is well marked by various ups and downs, with quite a few accidents and deaths happening here. Niki Luada famously escaped with his life after a fiery crash here in 1976, but he was badly burned. And between 1928 when the track was opened and 2010 there have been about seventy recorded competitor deaths, and this doesn’t include public users, unofficial testing or race officials.
Now all this doom and gloom might be a bit premature seeing how the track is constantly used for testing by major car manufacturers such as Porsche, Audi and Aston Martin, just to name a few, and besides the major Racing event such as Formula One and the 24-hour endurance race, there are also many driver training days, and days when the track is used by the public at large. There are many parties interested in the survival of the ‘Ring, so the idea that it might go bankrupt might be just that, an idea.
