almost no safety barriers at all and solid earth walls less than a foot from the track at some points...yikes. don't screw up or you'll go straight into a stone wall at 150km/h!
That's a Formula Vee (the camera car) on track with Hahne's F2 entry. Maybe I should dust off my old Zink C4 and enter it in the 1968 German Grand Prix.
it's a hard course even in video game racing...can't imagine how tough that must have been to do IRL in the 60s when there was basically zero margin for error.
51 Driver deaths on this track before the last Gran Prix race was held in 1976, the race in which Niki Lauda was so badly burned in a horrendous crash. After that, the track was completely redesigned to make it much shorter and safer.
They did race GP bikes (now MotoGP) here a number of times; the last time being 1980. The 1970 GP- where a rider was killed was the last motorcycle race on this version of the Nordschleife before it was modernized.
Is it this track that was to dangerous and drivers refused to race and went on strike if changes wasnt made to the track and safety after mike hawthorn burnt to death?..
You might be thinking of Roger Williamson but that wasn't this track. He died in a fiery crash at Zandvoort in 1973. He survived the initial crash but was trapped in the fire and perished after a slow response from track officials and emergency services. This led to increased safety demands from drivers that did eventually impact the Nurburgring. The FIA and Drivers began seriously questioning the Nurburgring / Nordschleife track by the 70's and it was decided it would be dropped for the 1977 session due to logistics and safety concerns. In the last race in '76, reigning champion Niki Lauda attempted to lead a boycott due to poor safety arrangements, but the drivers voted for the race to go on and Lauda famously crashed in poor conditions. He was trapped in his burning car before fellow drivers helped rescue him. He suffered serious burns to his face, lung damage, and given a slim chance of survival. But Lauda fought hard and only missed two races before returning. He died in 2019, partly as a result of the lingering damage to his lungs, and F1 races have never been back on the Nordschleife. (Mike Hawthorn retired from racing following the 1958 season and died three months later in a car crash on public roads in England. His teammate Peter Collins died at this track that season after losing control and being thrown from the car.)
