The wild thing about the Nürburgring 24 Hours is just about any car can run in it, so long as it has all of the required safety equipment. This is really cool, but also really scary. Theoretically, if I lived in mainland Europe, I could show up with a Mazda2 that’s prepped for B-Spec (again, as long as it passes the tech inspection), but I’d be sharing the track with the likes of BMW M6 GT3 cars. Yeah, it’s a huge track, but keeping an eye out for exponentially faster cars during an endurance race seems hugely terrifying.
Still, that doesn’t deter some folks who have more substantial nerves than yours truly. Case in point: one team entered a fully-race-prepared Dacia Logan into this year’s running of the legendary event, and the footage and photos are truly terrific. If the brand sounds familiar to my fellow North American car enthusiasts, that’s because of the Dacia Sandero of old ‘Top Gear’ fame. The Logan is the sedan version of the Sandero. I’m pretty sure it’s in the same class as say, the Toyota Corolla. It’s got a great name, too; like the Opel Karl.
As far as how fun and, well, slow the Logan looks, just feast your eyes upon it, courtesy of the ‘Ring’s official YouTube channel:
As YouTuber/driving instructor Misha Charoudin the gent who’s presenting and narrating in the video, explains, it’s actually not entirely stock: it makes a whopping 165 horsepower! That’s… not a big figure. But it’s still a good 50 more than a stock Logan. Plus, it’s got upgraded suspension, tires, and brakes.
In addition to discussing the car, he also gives viewers a crash course in what the race is all about, including the insanity that is the eclectic entry list.
It’s also Charoudin’s qualifying lap, rather than an in-race romp. Though rest assured, he posted a bunch of videos recently covering the race from his perspective, including discussing this year’s massive rain delay. He actually set a lap record! Well, nobody had run a Dacia Logan on the full competition course before (shocking), and he set the fastest lap time on his team. But still, pretty darn cool.
His documentation game is quite strong, check out the embedded and linked vids above, as well as this one:
