The Cresta Run is a legendary luge track in St Moritz, France, that has opened its doors to the public as a way of cashing in on its fame. Now extreme sports fanatics-or protracted suicides in progress, depending on your point of view-head like lemmings to the cliff face of one of sport's most intimidating names. Since luge ranks alongside chess on the public's sporting radar, the Cresta Run's notoriety comes solely from killing people-lots of 'em.
I never intend to feel my bones shatter on the ice after a 90-mph freefall, or wear a skin-tight Lycra suit. But before we criticize the tea-tray riding maniacs, we must admit we have our own Cresta Run. It's called the Nordschleife, the old Nürburgring in Germany. And I experienced that, at the wheel of Porsche's new 450-bhp 911 Turbo S.
Safety-conscious Scot Jackie Stewart dubbed the Nürburgring 'The Green Hell' before its long tenure as an F1 circuit came to an abrupt end in 1976, when Niki Lauda's face melted like the Wicked Witch of the West in a fire. The grand prix boys requested a new circuit, the Southern Loop, but it's a pale-pink imitation of the neighboring track.
While the Nordschleife was deemed too dangerous for the world's best drivers and most advanced cars, club racing still comes-even at night during the annual 24-hour spectacular. It also seemed rational to reclassify this 14-mile sliver of winding tarmac as a public toll road to nowhere and open all 157 corners on set days of the month. Welcome to the Cresta Run, with wheels.
Bikes, cars, vans, trucks, ambulances and tour buses all take to the circuit at the same time, a recipe for disaster in anyone's books, and it costs EUR12 a lap or EUR700 for an entire year's pass. An electronic car-park gate leads onto the world's craziest road. There are no safety briefings, no squadron of marshals on every bend and precious few rules. Most concern procedures if you come across an accident. Fail to follow them and you could be jailed, incidentally.
This is a public road and the laws apply, there is even a speed limit at Breidscheid. Legally, the Nordschleife is a minefield. The police will leave you alone if your car is legal and you don't crash. If you do, there can be any number of problems.
My personal Svengali for the day, Jamie Martin, explained all of this and more. Anyone pitching up for the first time should root out a veteran. Jamie, a neuro-linguistic programmer, or hypnotist to you and me, could have filled a book with tips. He filled several more on "How to Score with Girls," which along with a few major business successes is how he made his cash.
Two flying laps in the passenger seat of his Honda Integra Type-R that is, unsurprisingly, now for sale, pillaged my enthusiasm. I'd recently driven at Spa, seen the Nordschleife on TV and even done a lap or 10 on the PC game "Grand Prix Legends." But that 100-mph tour of hell had me handing next-of-kin details to a bemused snapper.
Or it may have been the German trailer trash gathering in the public areas to drink beer, play heavy-metal music and wait for the bloodshed that caused the onset of nerves.
They cheered the ambulance on its way to another casualty in the five track closures we endured on a dry day. In the wet it must be like a vintage day at the Coliseum, and realizing you have willingly entered a bloodsport is a chilling moment indeed.
Rollercoaster altitude changes, vicious cambers and sharp, blind turns all combine with a track that is only 7-ft wide. This is no two-dimensional track, it's a 3-D wall of death: 100 mph feels like double that, and there's always the chance the car will plummet like a plane in an air pocket or take off over the next crest.
With roughly 11 corners in every mile, there is no chance to relax-or even look at the nav to see which way the road goes over yet another brow. There's no way anyone can learn it in less than a day and when Ruf hired the circuit for its promotional video its old hands refused to tackle more than three corners at a time.
The 'Ring has a habit of feinting left before carving right, or vice-versa, usually with an adverse camber thrown. And there could always be a puddle of oil, debris or even a stricken biker 'round the next bend.
Heading into one chicane I dived to the left to avoid a potential spinner, found myself hopelessly offline for the second turn and clattered over the curbs as the Armco waited to wipe 90k off the price of the car. I was lucky, Porsche's ceramic brakes were immense, and the car slowed in time.
I would have gotten away with it completely, had it not been for the pesky debris on the chicane that left a scratch on the underside of the rear wheel arch. Had I jinked the other way, I could have brought the Porsche home in a plastic bag.
Hartge Engineering's Jorg Wey had a worse experience. When delivering a customer's brand new and fully modified BMW, he found himself passing the Nordschleife. One lap couldn't hurt could it? Well yes, it could.
Jorg found himself leaving the track when a bike fell in front of him, and he hit the wall, hard. "His" car spun down the barriers and the only undamaged part of the car was one rear taillight, while he left with a broken arm, a EUR150 recovery bill and a substantial repair bill for the Armco.
This explains why the supercars were some of the slowest out. At the 'Ring, a single moment often precedes a write-off, which is why the most committed drivers took beaten-up Golfs, BMW 3 Series and even a Fiat Uno with a rollcage. Bomb disposal experts could have worked on the passenger seat of the Ferrari 360.
Less than a meter of grass separates the track from the battle-scarred Armco that whistles past the car on either side for much of the track. Behind the Armco is a wall of trees and it's like driving through a tight tunnel at times. The Cresta Run comparisons don't end at the death toll.
There's even two banked bobsled-style switchback bends, of which the first Karussell is the most famous. Ride it right and the car pops out of the corner perfectly aligned for the following bend, but carry too much speed in or take the wrong line and the car can fire off the bank and into the air-or a double-decker bus.