The holy grail of all race tracks is in financial crisis and may close permanently due to the brilliant scam by Kai Richter & Jorg Lidner to develop an amusement park, themed shopping center and casino all funded with public tax dollars in an already economically depressed region of Germany. The Richter/Lidner development was based on fake visitor numbers and exploited the rich Nurburgring motorsport history.
With it’s poorly constructed buildings and lack of visitors, the development looks like a ghost town within a year of it’s grand opening. All this has put the “ring” in half a billion Euros in debt and climbing daily.
Instead of pulling the plug, the “ring” is rented back to Richter/Lidner. Without any motorsport experience they have now been experimenting with random events completely unrelated to racing (German Volksmusik for example).
The Nordschleife must now pay for the huge losses of “NüroDisney”. The huge price increases and mandatory bundled packages for lapping sessions, plus a 500% increase for the automotive industry for prototype testing, has put the long term success of the track into a financial death spiral.
Ideas are quickly popping up to help save the future of the Nordschleife.
Here is a start. http://savethering.org/ | http://www.facebook.com/SaveTheRing
Tags: Nurburgring-crisis
Fuelfed® 
December 31, 2010 at 2:44 am |
Its too bad all good things must come to an end in the name of progress.
Wouldn’t you think the German car companies would subsidize the Ring, since they use it to test drive their new cars?
January 7, 2011 at 8:53 pm |
@ Jean The car companies don’t have the funds to run this; don’t forget that any who in F1 have now mostly pulled out owing to lack of funds. No, the support for the use of the ‘Ring comes from the public who drive it on public days virtually every day of the week, They and the select few race meetings and other track based events which they still hold on the Nordschliefe are what used to cover all of the costs associated with the track – and long may that have continued… However now these botched developments – which have nothing to do with the track based events – are having to be subsidised by the track based events – because the whole lot, track and nearby developments, are now all financially linked together. The only answer to allow the track to continue is for the track to be separated and for the developments to stand – or fall – on their own.
January 7, 2011 at 9:37 pm |
I agree 100% with Peter, that there has to be separation of track and parasitic development.
January 10, 2011 at 11:14 am |
cool