The Road to the Nurburgring: A Journey with the Arizona

As I sit here, surrounded by the darkness and the sound of rain pattering against the windshield, I can barely contain my excitement. The Arizona, my trusty car for this adventure, has been equipped with winter tires, and I'm eager to put them to the test on the infamous Nurburgring circuit. With a flexi plus ticket in hand, we're set to embark on a journey that promises to be nothing short of thrilling.

As we make our way to the Eurotunnel, I'm reminded of the importance of planning ahead, especially during peak travel seasons like Easter weekend. The traffic out of London was a disaster, and it's taken us hours to reach this point. But with the flexibility of our ticket, we're able to sit back and wait for our turn to board the train, which will take us across the border into France and Belgium.

The queue for passport control was just as tedious as the line for tickets, but we managed to avoid getting stuck in it by boarding the train as soon as we had our documents in order. Now, we're sitting on a train, watching the hours tick by as we make our way across the Channel. The journey is going to be long and arduous, with only a few hours of daylight left before we reach our destination.

As the clock strikes 11 o'clock, I take a moment to appreciate the absurdity of it all. We're on a train, traveling through the night, with no end in sight. The thought of getting up at 4:30 AM to start the day is enough to make me want to roll over and go back to sleep. But we can't afford that luxury. We have to be ready for the day ahead.

As the hours drag on, I take a moment to catch my breath and gather my thoughts. The rain shows no signs of letting up, and I'm grateful for the soundproofing in this train car. It's going to be a long night, but at least we're comfortable. The Arizona is all secured and ready for whatever the day may bring.

As we pull into our final destination, I can feel a sense of relief wash over me. We made it! Now, it's time to get checked into the hotel and prepare for the adventures that lie ahead. Tomorrow, we'll be joining a convoy, driving through some of Europe's most beautiful landscapes, and experiencing the thrill of car fright X at the Nurburgring.

But first, I need to get my gear in order. The fairing on the Arizona is caked with dirt and grime from the journey today, and it needs to be cleaned up before we set off tomorrow. I take a deep breath and head upstairs to check into our hotel room, eager to get some rest and prepare for the excitement that awaits us.

Tomorrow's going to be a big day. We're going to hit the road running, with no holds barred. The Porsche offered me the chance to drive their GT3 RS, but I wouldn't have taken it in a second. I've got my sights set on more than just speed – I want to experience the thrill of driving a car that's truly exceptional.

As I settle into bed, I can feel the excitement building up inside me. We're not going to be taking it easy on this tour. We're going to push ourselves to the limit, testing our skills and our cars on some of Europe's most challenging roads. It's going to be an adventure for the books, and I'm honored to be a part of it.

The time is now. The sun is rising over the German countryside, casting a golden glow over the landscape. We're ready to hit the road, with no holds barred. Bring it on!

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enhi guys I'm Shmi and welcome to the start of the 2016 where's me euro tour the road to top marks Monaco this year just like the last couple has a spectacular itinerary I'm going to be on the road for the next I think four weeks now traveling around Europe taking in some fantastic events themed obviously around top marks in Monaco but I won't be handed down through Europe I'll be visiting all sorts of different manufacturers tuners museums factories all sorts of different places testing different cars even picking up a car on the way that we're going to be using for a little bit in the near future so this is going to be a pretty spectacular tour and it's slightly strange because I'm starting standing here in front of my GT 4 which is probably the only car that's not featuring in this tour it actually breaks down into two parts today I'm going to be crossing the eras of all this evening I should say because I'm not actually going to leave until it's already dark I'm going to be crossing onto the continent in the FF but Ferrari FF that I've got to go pick up shortly from posh wash it's in having the wheels refurbs but it's they've had a little bit of D lacquering after a sort of shorty job to a refurb in the past so hopefully those are now all absolutely perfect I'll pick up the FF get my passenger and we'll be making our way across the euro tunnel towards Germany today we're going all the way towards the Nurburgring I made to be joining pace the dealership out there that I visited a few times before I may join for a spectacular Drive in the Agera R during rally c'mon yeah last summer then we'll be going from pace to the Nurburgring of the car Freitag the opening day Good Friday Easter weekend of the Nurburgring of seasons I'm looking forward to that I've never been before the FF still has its Pirelli saucer zero winter tires on which might be needed because it's gonna be very cold and not so good weather there then from there I've actually got the couple of days around the distal Dorf area so I'm gonna be based in the north of Germany visiting lots of different places I'm sure there'll be tons of posts on social media everywhere that I'm going with the FF before a little while later I Drive the FF back to London have a couple of cool things going on here in London that you'll be seeing as well then jump into one of the other cars I think it will probably be the McLaren the 675lt it might be the GT 4 but I haven't actually actually decided yet which is a strange luxury to be able to have to decide at a later date I'll be driving back over back through Germany heading down well then leave my car somewhere hop on a flight to Portugal to go to a pretty special event to Portugal then fly back over continue driving with the LT down through the south of Germany pass took Garth through the Alps some amazing driving roads as always into Italy for cars and coffee pressure they're not be visiting a few more places in Italy on the way over to Monaco and that's where I'll be based during the top marks monaco weeks I'm sure I'll catch lots of you out there I know a lot of people in the social media world are going to be heading down to top marks this year so that's going to be pretty special now you might remember last year I took two cars on this tour I took my McLaren 650s spider and I took a BMW m4 from the BMW press office and we also had night shift studios filming at the documentary but it's now all the TV show that's now going out supercar TVs probably might have already seen that episode the first episode of the time I feel we did a few meetings along the way where we mess up with you guys but there's a slight complication that holds me back from doing too many of these unfortunately on this tour which is that basically so many people now come that I have to arrange event organizers and security for the area and maybe even inform the police so it gets very very complicated so I will do some pretty spontaneous ones in the big cities düsseldorf should have guards Monaco so keep your eyes peeled on my social media platforms Instagram and Facebook where I will announce them probably with the day's notice I'll try and sort of do it as best I can but I have to be careful it's very very complicated I hope you understand but I do try and catch up with as many of you as possible along the way so this is set to be a pretty insane at all the FFF the Lt thousands of miles driving around Europe amazing roads fantastic places to visit and a lot to take in so I'm very very excited first up though like I say I've got to go into posh warship and collect PFF before I can depart so given we have the IP exhaust in here we play let's just turn the ignition on and then with the ignition on I can take a switch but the exhaust in loud mode Zambia punch of course hey Leon so raising I still understand eventually the wheels in a second basically it's two-part process to paint them and diamond from the spokes and they'll so much brighter they work for this is how they should have been they were starting sort of D lacquer slightly in there in the gaps here so it looks much much nicer now we're just gonna give the interior a quick clean because I stupidly did buy a car with a cream interior so we'll tidy that up and then it's nice take the car home load up the bags get on the road and go to the Eurotunnel to get this tidy and then I'll be on my way back home back in my garage this time with the ffs where the gt4 was before and the boot is loaded this is one of the reasons why I'm in this car you can fit two suitcases loads of soft bags everything we need all of the boots man there's still space in there end up having some other people along the way so this first part of the trip in case you're wondering why am I not taking the LT the whole way and that's perhaps on the big questions well I'm basically darting around a lot of northern Germany putting some quite a few miles on and not really driving any interesting roads as basically motorways the whole way so this is pretty much the ultimate car for this I'll bring it back but also the weather with the winter tires like I mentioned so I'll then bring this back and then hopefully when the weather's nice I'll be taking the LT out potentially entrepot our tires which will be quite exciting and if not it'll be GT for what come to is both of which of course are kind of like almost racing slicks but probably more with a bit of tread but this is their favorite class takes the Nurburgring when the weather is really rubbish and all you're doing is driving or rubbish Eros anyway it is now I think call it's 7:00 in the evening this is when I'm setting off this is raining and dark outside already I'm heading down to the Eurotunnel crossing it's probably going to be six or seven hours tonight so that means with the Hawks going forward it's going to be very very late when I check into my hotel this evening so I should probably stop talking get on the road get the Arizona I'll get checked in get into France and Belgium and Germany let's go this has been a rather horrendous journey we've been driving for about three hours traffic out of London was an absolute disaster it is the Easter weekend so I definitely should have thought about this beforehand and now we're at the Eurotunnel as you can probably tell we're sitting in a traffic jam I don't think we're gonna go anywhere in a hurry anytime soon now I have booked a flexi plus ticket which at the Eurotunnel means basically to take ten minutes thanks ways when we do get to the front we can't skip the queue and go straight through and get on the first available train so that is going to work in our favor but unfortunately to get there we aren't going to sit in this traffic jam for a little bit longer which is no fun at all and it's already 10 o'clock at night we have to go in I want to get a bite to eat and then get the fairy fairy the train across then we've got about three and a half hours I think maybe on the other side so this is going to be a very very long night especially when you consider that clocks go forward as well but all we can do is sit a wait and see what happens the queue for passport control was just as stupid as the queue to even get the ticket so it took about probably an hour to queue to get our ticket into the Eurotunnel and then we saw the queue for going into the terminal to get food and basically just said completely no to that we go straight to join the train so that is what we're doing right now boarding the train having probably saved ourselves another hour of tedious queueing get this far so today traveling all the Easter weekend is a complete and total disaster but we are on a train we will get across the border and then it's going to be a silly late night what is it now it's now about 11 o'clock so yeah fun fun the time now is a lovely five minutes to 4:00 in the morning which is moderately ridiculous given that we're actually getting up at about four a half hours time from now to go sit so far as events are just going to be fun but here we are we've made it to our kin in Germany where we're staying tonight ready for the convoy tomorrow morning the FF is rather western filthy because it's basically been non-stop rain the entirety of the drive today so that's been fairly intense I'm definitely gonna have to get it cleaned up ready for the weekend probably that she doesn't look too bad under the lights in here but tomorrow we're going to be going to pace we're going to be joining their convoy and then we're going to be driving over to the Nurburgring for car fright X I'm looking forward to experiencing that my first time although I understand it's going to be absolute carnage and it's also forecast to be pouring with rain but we're back on the road where Shmi 2016 has started and as I said earlier there's quite a lot in store for this tour it's gonna be absolutely it's just gonna be ridiculous so I can't wait to share all of these adventures with you with this car with other cars everything I'll be driving and just the whole lot that's gonna take place along the way so yeah that was a pretty long day given we started late and it's now crazy early in the morning so I'm gonna go get checked into the hotel upstairs and get ready for tomorrow so thank you very much for watching make sure you stay tuned for the rest of this adventure and I'll catch up with you tomorrow Cheers so here we go p1 time ss system up already that's gonna make it easily get it Porsche offered me a gt3 RS I would not take a second to think about wine one let's jump inhi guys I'm Shmi and welcome to the start of the 2016 where's me euro tour the road to top marks Monaco this year just like the last couple has a spectacular itinerary I'm going to be on the road for the next I think four weeks now traveling around Europe taking in some fantastic events themed obviously around top marks in Monaco but I won't be handed down through Europe I'll be visiting all sorts of different manufacturers tuners museums factories all sorts of different places testing different cars even picking up a car on the way that we're going to be using for a little bit in the near future so this is going to be a pretty spectacular tour and it's slightly strange because I'm starting standing here in front of my GT 4 which is probably the only car that's not featuring in this tour it actually breaks down into two parts today I'm going to be crossing the eras of all this evening I should say because I'm not actually going to leave until it's already dark I'm going to be crossing onto the continent in the FF but Ferrari FF that I've got to go pick up shortly from posh wash it's in having the wheels refurbs but it's they've had a little bit of D lacquering after a sort of shorty job to a refurb in the past so hopefully those are now all absolutely perfect I'll pick up the FF get my passenger and we'll be making our way across the euro tunnel towards Germany today we're going all the way towards the Nurburgring I made to be joining pace the dealership out there that I visited a few times before I may join for a spectacular Drive in the Agera R during rally c'mon yeah last summer then we'll be going from pace to the Nurburgring of the car Freitag the opening day Good Friday Easter weekend of the Nurburgring of seasons I'm looking forward to that I've never been before the FF still has its Pirelli saucer zero winter tires on which might be needed because it's gonna be very cold and not so good weather there then from there I've actually got the couple of days around the distal Dorf area so I'm gonna be based in the north of Germany visiting lots of different places I'm sure there'll be tons of posts on social media everywhere that I'm going with the FF before a little while later I Drive the FF back to London have a couple of cool things going on here in London that you'll be seeing as well then jump into one of the other cars I think it will probably be the McLaren the 675lt it might be the GT 4 but I haven't actually actually decided yet which is a strange luxury to be able to have to decide at a later date I'll be driving back over back through Germany heading down well then leave my car somewhere hop on a flight to Portugal to go to a pretty special event to Portugal then fly back over continue driving with the LT down through the south of Germany pass took Garth through the Alps some amazing driving roads as always into Italy for cars and coffee pressure they're not be visiting a few more places in Italy on the way over to Monaco and that's where I'll be based during the top marks monaco weeks I'm sure I'll catch lots of you out there I know a lot of people in the social media world are going to be heading down to top marks this year so that's going to be pretty special now you might remember last year I took two cars on this tour I took my McLaren 650s spider and I took a BMW m4 from the BMW press office and we also had night shift studios filming at the documentary but it's now all the TV show that's now going out supercar TVs probably might have already seen that episode the first episode of the time I feel we did a few meetings along the way where we mess up with you guys but there's a slight complication that holds me back from doing too many of these unfortunately on this tour which is that basically so many people now come that I have to arrange event organizers and security for the area and maybe even inform the police so it gets very very complicated so I will do some pretty spontaneous ones in the big cities düsseldorf should have guards Monaco so keep your eyes peeled on my social media platforms Instagram and Facebook where I will announce them probably with the day's notice I'll try and sort of do it as best I can but I have to be careful it's very very complicated I hope you understand but I do try and catch up with as many of you as possible along the way so this is set to be a pretty insane at all the FFF the Lt thousands of miles driving around Europe amazing roads fantastic places to visit and a lot to take in so I'm very very excited first up though like I say I've got to go into posh warship and collect PFF before I can depart so given we have the IP exhaust in here we play let's just turn the ignition on and then with the ignition on I can take a switch but the exhaust in loud mode Zambia punch of course hey Leon so raising I still understand eventually the wheels in a second basically it's two-part process to paint them and diamond from the spokes and they'll so much brighter they work for this is how they should have been they were starting sort of D lacquer slightly in there in the gaps here so it looks much much nicer now we're just gonna give the interior a quick clean because I stupidly did buy a car with a cream interior so we'll tidy that up and then it's nice take the car home load up the bags get on the road and go to the Eurotunnel to get this tidy and then I'll be on my way back home back in my garage this time with the ffs where the gt4 was before and the boot is loaded this is one of the reasons why I'm in this car you can fit two suitcases loads of soft bags everything we need all of the boots man there's still space in there end up having some other people along the way so this first part of the trip in case you're wondering why am I not taking the LT the whole way and that's perhaps on the big questions well I'm basically darting around a lot of northern Germany putting some quite a few miles on and not really driving any interesting roads as basically motorways the whole way so this is pretty much the ultimate car for this I'll bring it back but also the weather with the winter tires like I mentioned so I'll then bring this back and then hopefully when the weather's nice I'll be taking the LT out potentially entrepot our tires which will be quite exciting and if not it'll be GT for what come to is both of which of course are kind of like almost racing slicks but probably more with a bit of tread but this is their favorite class takes the Nurburgring when the weather is really rubbish and all you're doing is driving or rubbish Eros anyway it is now I think call it's 7:00 in the evening this is when I'm setting off this is raining and dark outside already I'm heading down to the Eurotunnel crossing it's probably going to be six or seven hours tonight so that means with the Hawks going forward it's going to be very very late when I check into my hotel this evening so I should probably stop talking get on the road get the Arizona I'll get checked in get into France and Belgium and Germany let's go this has been a rather horrendous journey we've been driving for about three hours traffic out of London was an absolute disaster it is the Easter weekend so I definitely should have thought about this beforehand and now we're at the Eurotunnel as you can probably tell we're sitting in a traffic jam I don't think we're gonna go anywhere in a hurry anytime soon now I have booked a flexi plus ticket which at the Eurotunnel means basically to take ten minutes thanks ways when we do get to the front we can't skip the queue and go straight through and get on the first available train so that is going to work in our favor but unfortunately to get there we aren't going to sit in this traffic jam for a little bit longer which is no fun at all and it's already 10 o'clock at night we have to go in I want to get a bite to eat and then get the fairy fairy the train across then we've got about three and a half hours I think maybe on the other side so this is going to be a very very long night especially when you consider that clocks go forward as well but all we can do is sit a wait and see what happens the queue for passport control was just as stupid as the queue to even get the ticket so it took about probably an hour to queue to get our ticket into the Eurotunnel and then we saw the queue for going into the terminal to get food and basically just said completely no to that we go straight to join the train so that is what we're doing right now boarding the train having probably saved ourselves another hour of tedious queueing get this far so today traveling all the Easter weekend is a complete and total disaster but we are on a train we will get across the border and then it's going to be a silly late night what is it now it's now about 11 o'clock so yeah fun fun the time now is a lovely five minutes to 4:00 in the morning which is moderately ridiculous given that we're actually getting up at about four a half hours time from now to go sit so far as events are just going to be fun but here we are we've made it to our kin in Germany where we're staying tonight ready for the convoy tomorrow morning the FF is rather western filthy because it's basically been non-stop rain the entirety of the drive today so that's been fairly intense I'm definitely gonna have to get it cleaned up ready for the weekend probably that she doesn't look too bad under the lights in here but tomorrow we're going to be going to pace we're going to be joining their convoy and then we're going to be driving over to the Nurburgring for car fright X I'm looking forward to experiencing that my first time although I understand it's going to be absolute carnage and it's also forecast to be pouring with rain but we're back on the road where Shmi 2016 has started and as I said earlier there's quite a lot in store for this tour it's gonna be absolutely it's just gonna be ridiculous so I can't wait to share all of these adventures with you with this car with other cars everything I'll be driving and just the whole lot that's gonna take place along the way so yeah that was a pretty long day given we started late and it's now crazy early in the morning so I'm gonna go get checked into the hotel upstairs and get ready for tomorrow so thank you very much for watching make sure you stay tuned for the rest of this adventure and I'll catch up with you tomorrow Cheers so here we go p1 time ss system up already that's gonna make it easily get it Porsche offered me a gt3 RS I would not take a second to think about wine one let's jump in\n"