(By Eric Rood) – The VLN (Don’t ask us to type out the incredibly long proper German name for which that is an abbreviation) hosts endurance races 10 times a year on the fabled Nurburgring Nordschleife in Germany, the first of which for 2016 was held last weekend. Unsurprisingly, the Top 10 was made up almost entirely of German GT3 cars, but the Green Hell lived up to its brutal reputation on a number of teutonic beasts. Friday practice claimed a brand new Porsche Cayman GT4, which somehow vaulted the Armco barrier and ended up 100 feet into the Rhineland forest. The driver escaped without serious injury and luckily there were no bystanders in that section track. It wasn’t immediately clear how the Cayman went over the barrier, though a well-timed (or poorly timed, depending on how you consider such things) cartwheel could have done the trick.
Either way, it’s another scary accident almost a year to the day after a Nissan GT-R GT3 went airborne, cleared the catch fencing, and came down in a spectator crowd, killing one. That accident prompted speed limits on some sections of the racetrack temporarily last year, which have since been lifted.
During the race itself on Saturday, there were only a few dicey moments, but this Mercedes AMG GT surely looks a little worse for wear with its hood about 90 percent broken off and its air intake flapping in the wind. While the Ring’s future occasionally looks in doubt, the Nordschleife remains a brutally intimidating racetrack and these are a couple of reminders of the toll it can take.
