Burnin the 'Bahn. 600km in 6 hours

Short and sweet, the challenge was set in the meme thread:

And I thought I had the perfect opportunity to accept.  I've got good weather predicted for the weekend:

I've got my 2004 Mazda RX8,  but what I don't have is 600km, straight shot to the border and the challenge specifically implies "in one country".  To make up for the missing 50km I need to make the full 600, I'm going to have to punch west to go east!

Sorry for the blurry shot.  34km west and then 574km east.  On saturday morning it is on 

600km in 6 hours 

Sounds like fun!

Good luck, hope for miles/KMs of open road for your run. Be safe.

This is cool. Following. 

If traffic allows, and no waiting time at the Borders, this should be doable!

How big is the tank on the RX8? 1 or 2 Pit Stop Race? :D

Try to be early to beat the shopping traffic around Vienna.

Some parts of the A1 are limited to 100, and the A8 upwards as well, but everything else should be 130 in Austria.

That stretch of german Autobahn is where I maxxed out my CLK 320 in 2018. 255 on the speedo, and a glorious roar from the exhaust when using the kickdown at 190 :D

I'd offer my help if you have a problem around Vienna, but I feel like I can't offer much in terms of actual fixing stuff. Translation maybe..

Thanks guys!  Tomorrow's the big day and I'll admit I'm getting a bit more excited about this than I thought I would. 

In reply to Gzwg :

For this one I'm going to try to do the full 600km in Germany, luckily it looks like 99% of my trip will be on the A6 but I think it might be a 2-pit run.  I'll fill up right before my entry on to the 'bahn, but cruising at 6000+rpms (185kph) my car gets pretty thirsty.  Not to mention all the gas wasted when I slow down for construction, traffic, construction, weather, construction, restricted zones, and construction and have to speed back up again.  255 is nuts though!!!  The fastest I've had my Mazda up to was 220kph the last time I was out this way.  She held the road pretty well, but I couldnt imagine going faster than that!  You, sir, are my hero.

So tomorrow is the big day and I still have high hopes   I've spent most of the afternoon doing some thinking.  I thought this would be a good time for a...

Prologue!

I think there might be a big misconception to the question of "why Germany".  See, outside Germany we have this vision of LONG de-restricted sections of the autobahn where we can travel at unlimited speed and everyone stays right except to pass.  But in my (albeit brief) experience it looks like most of the autobahn is limited.  Examples:

• weather (100kph in the rain)
• construction (80kph)
• just random speed limited areas (130kph). 
• Traffic in the left lane.  (100kph-130kph).  *Lorries and cars traveling at a lower rate of speed often clog the left (of two) lanes while passing.

With that said:  I flat out refuse to speed through construction, I CANT speed in the rain as I'm on worn Toyo Proxes R888r's, and that last two are self explanatory.  So contrary to stereotypes, it's actually going to be pretty tough keeping my average speed above 100km/hr for 6 full hours.  Especially with stops for fuel, pee, etc.

I DID have a bit of a "proof of concept" on the way out here though.  From my jaunt through west Hungary, Austria, and parts of Germany, I think I was able to cover 600km in 6hrs but two things got in the way of me posting the obligatory thread of victory:

• The claim specifically says "in any other country" (singular).  Of the three countries I'll be driving through, only Germany has the land mass to allow me to drive 600km and stay within its borders on this trip.
• I may have kind of taken a nap in the middle and did not include a stop I had to make to buy a vignette.  It's one thing to say "I did" and another to say "I did, but I...".  I want to get this in one go, and in one country

Either way, it's going to be a blast.  But for now, there's nothing to do but to get some rest.  Here's some obligatory Autobahn memes to hold us over until tomorrow morning:

Good times

And we're off!

Our journey begins at 8:10am at a shell station 

Perhaps I should do something about the head gasket before i go jaunting across germany?

Well that's an unfortunate twist

That's unfortunate!

what now?

Just teasin.  That's pretty normal for a rotary if you dont take them out and open them up.

So.  I've punched west 25km, and snagged a clover leaf to make up for the 50 missing kms.

From there it was just me chasing the sunrise

I wonder if anyone's tried to ride off thto the sunrise before? 

Now it may just be my perception, but i think there's a whole lot more restricted sections of the bahn than derestricted...  still though.  For those few glorious moments, those open areas are paradise!

I keep myself around 170kph, and I'm by no means the fastest thing on four wheels.  For a while there though, i had a pretty good convoy goin.  But like i said, most of it is restricted or under construction 

After 3 hours, i figured it wad time to pee.  Here's progress so far:

I wish there was someone here to photograph for me.  The german countryside is absolutely beautiful!  I saw a license plate that saud "berkeley" ,(the 4 letter version), and one that said the "c-word" (which i wont type here)  both had me laughing.  I also saw the new mach-e.  Oh my goodness that thing is homely  wow.

Anyhoo, coffee break is over.  Back on our heads!  

Sing it with me folks "east bound and doooooown..." 

Oh man.  Just after posting the above (and getting through central germany), the seas parted and holy smokes was it a blast!!!  Unrestricted zones started appearing more, traffic less, and look who i met on my way!

I loved this guy.  Any time traffic allowed he just put his foot flat to the floor and didnt let up until we hit traffic again.  Unfortunately I think the fastest we got up to was 225kph, but it sure was a lot of fun.  Pretty soon he was gone, but I was still making good time (around 160-180kph).  This car though, it just LOVES to run!  If I so much as curl my toes, it tries to take off!  It just pulls and pulls and pulls.  Somewhere around 200kph I felt a vibration like there was a tire out of balance, so i probably wont crest 255 any time soon.  But man, what a blast.

Thus is how all highways should be

So how sid I do?

Well, two stops and I made it in 5hrs and 20 minutes.

Right at the border too.  I couldnt have planned that better if I tried.

Dare I say though, that if I hadnt stopped to post, i bet this could be done by the 5 hour mark.  In fact, I think that should be the new challenge.  600km in 5 hours (legally) 

Man, this is fun though.  I really cant do it justice from my phone.  Next time we'll need a photographer because so much just cant be conveyed through type.  Still some darn good times though.

Gotta go though.  I'm still 4 hours from home and boy is my butt sore!

Cool, just posting something so it's easy to find later and read the details.

Good luck, please prove me massively wrong.

Adrian_Thompson (Forum Supporter) said:

Cool, just posting something so it's easy to find later and read the details.

Good luck, please prove me massively wrong.

yeah buddy!  And thanks a ton for the idea, coming down from that autbahn run was like coming down after finishing a close race.  Once the adrenaline wore off, things were pretty sedate through all of Austria and Hungary.  I had to stop a few times just to keep myself from getting too bored/drowsy (I forgot to mention, my radio doesn't work so there was a lot of talking to myself and singing along to nothing going on).

So total trip was 1034.8kms and I finished at the 9-hour and 39 minute mark (5:49Pm).  I think the toughest part of the challenge isn't the speed versus time, but finding a country with enough KM's in it.  Hungary is only 550-ish kms at its widest, and dang if I didnt get through all of Austria in about 2 or 2.5 hours (@ 130kph).   Even still, it took nearly all of Germany just to get to the required 600kms (and I very nearly drove border to border).

It's a good challenge and hopefully another opportunity will present itself.  I'd really like to try this with a posted speed limit and see what it's like without the 'bahn involved.

Good times!

Wait, you did not have anything to do in Germany, you just did a full day of driving because ... someone on the internets said it is not possible?

Positively crazy! 

What I find a bit scary is that after 5 Minutes of driving above 200, you slow down to 180 and feel like you are doing a safe and slow speed. 

I had my Speedster up to 220 in June, a bit windy without the roof. An empty plastic Coke Bottle started flying around in the car. 

Hungary Bill (Forum Supporter) said:

What a car - I love the first nsx in that color! 

Damn, just came back and read the thread.  Massive congratulations to Hungary Bill for making a liar out of me.  BTW, I would have accepted crossing into a different country as well.  But damn well done for doing it in daylight on the congestobhan.

Quick note on Autobahns and crossing borders.  Back in 08 when I picked up my C30 in Sweden and drove it around before shipping it back to the States, we actually crossed from Denmark into Germany gone midnight at 130mph without lifting.  Great progress.  We then spent the night in Hamburg thinking we'd get down to Nurburg in 5-6 hours.  IT was the next morning that we discovered the truth about autobahn traffic and it tool something like 11 hours with weekday traffic jams.  

Gzwg said:

Wait, you did not have anything to do in Germany, you just did a full day of driving because ... someone on the internets said it is not possible?

Positively crazy! 

What I find a bit scary is that after 5 Minutes of driving above 200, you slow down to 180 and feel like you are doing a safe and slow speed. 

I had my Speedster up to 220 in June, a bit windy without the roof. An empty plastic Coke Bottle started flying around in the car. 

To be fair, I was out there for a work trip.  20-days in Ramstein.

I didnt do much while out there though, aside from a 10-hour hike down the Camino de Santiago (Jacob's trail).  Apparently it goes all the way to the northwest corner of Spain, but I was staying local.
 

Adrian_Thompson (Forum Supporter) said:

Damn, just came back and read the thread.  Massive congratulations to Hungary Bill for making a liar out of me.  BTW, I would have accepted crossing into a different country as well.  But damn well done for doing it in daylight on the congestobhan.

Quick note on Autobahns and crossing borders.  Back in 08 when I picked up my C30 in Sweden and drove it around before shipping it back to the States, we actually crossed from Denmark into Germany gone midnight at 130mph without lifting.  Great progress.  We then spent the night in Hamburg thinking we'd get down to Nurburg in 5-6 hours.  IT was the next morning that we discovered the truth about autobahn traffic and it tool something like 11 hours with weekday traffic jams.  

You're really not kidding about autobahn traffic.  There were many parts that were "stop and go" on the way out, and then there's the million counter-flows, and the occasional slow vehicle.  At one point both lanes were clogged for MILES and I couldnt figure out why.  The culprit turned out to be three classic american cars (60's and early 70's muscle) that were stuck at 100kph in the right lane...  Holy smokes was that frustrating.

Hungary Bill (Forum Supporter)

The culprit turned out to be three classic american cars (60's and early 70's muscle) that were stuck at 100kph in the right lane...  Holy smokes was that frustrating.

That's a capitol offense is some states here. 

Fun trip!

We autobahn'd a bunch on our honeymoon. Frankfurt was our base and we went to the nürburgring, rhine valley , sinsheim, and Rötenburg.  We did not encounter much traffic and was able to get our turbo diesel 6 speed rental Nissan qashqai up to ~225kph downhill in 6th gear with the throttle matted to the floor.

Maybe we were lucky to be out in the parts of the county that had some light traffic on the A routes?

Thanks for sharing!

Greg