History of the Nürburgring

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The Nürburgring is a race track located around the village of Nürburg, in the Rhineland-Palatinate, of Germany. The track today has a total of three circuit configurations the GP-Strecke, Nordschleife, and the Combined Circuit with there being four total closed circuits. The GP-Strecke is a 3.199 mile asphalt circuit with a total of 16 turns. The Nordschleife is a 12.93 mile asphalt and concrete circuit with a total of 154 turns. The longest of the circuits being the Combined Circuit is a 16.123 mile asphalt and concrete circuit with a total of 170 turns. Every year the Nürburgring takes the lives of three to twelve people and is considered to be one of the most dangerous race tracks ever made. Before the Nürburgring Germany had no permanent racing circuit despite the fact that German automobile manufacturers were at the front of automobile development.
The talk of building a racing circuit came when Camille Jenatzy won the Gordon Bennett Trophy in a 90 horsepower Mercedes in 1903. With that win Germany had to host the 1904 and did so with full support of Kaiser Wilhelm II. With the success of the 1904 Gordon Bennett race in Germany and its popularity led to the introduction of Germany’s own race series the Kaiserpreis race series in 1907.
During the same time the Kaiserpreis race series was introduced there were talks of building a permanent testing facility for the German automobile manufacturers. There was serious debate about building the testing facility and a location in the Eifel Mountains was considered. In the end the idea of building the test facility was dismissed and within a few years of the idea being dismissed Europe was plunged into World War I. After World War I Germany was plunged into a chaotic financial state a...

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...as the first legend of the Nürburgring.
During World War II the circuit was held under Nazi regime and when World War II ended in 1945 the track it was given back to local control. In 1948, the track had some reconstruction work done, after the reconstruction the track was put back into service for national races. Initially when the track was reopened the occupying forces prevented Germany from competing in race in the international events and it was not until 1950 that the circuit was used for a Grand Prix races again.

Works Cited

Blinkhorn, Robert. "History to 1976." History to 1976. Nurburgring.org.uk, 2014. Web. 30 Apr. 2014. .
"The Green Hell Legend: The Nordschleife." Http://www.nuerburgring.de/en/ueberuns/the- legend-nuerburgring/nordschleife.html. Http://www.nuerburgring.de/, 2013. Web. 30 Apr. 2014.

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