Lately, I hadn’t had much time to work on editing the photos and making regular posts on my blog. Life kinda got a bit busy the last couple of weeks! Still, I’m glad to finally have this gallery uploaded, as it features my best shots of the year! Race day during the Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion was full of thrills as I had decided to camp out by Turn 11. This turn is notorious for being very tight with a gravel trap on the outside. And since everyone was pushing it during the final day of racing, there was going to be some sideways action!
Imagine my surprise when several race cars went sideways offroading in the gravel trap right in front of me! These ARE my best shots of the year!
This past week I’ve been processing THOUSANDS of photos. I just finished going through the first day of photos from the Reunion Practice Sessions, but I’ll be adding the qualifying and race session photos very soon!
In the meantime, check out the list of galleries below!
To understand exactly how fast that is, first, you have to understand how big the Nordschleife is, and how fast a racecar can go around it. The original “Nordschleife” or “North Loop” was built in the 1920s around the town of Nürburg, in the Eifel mountains. Also nicknamed “The Green Hell”, the Nordschleife is almost 13 miles long, with 73 turns and massive elevation changes. Sports car manufacturers often use the Nordschleife to develop their cars, and it’s not uncommon for a car maker to boast about its cars’ lap times.
A “fast” car can make the loop at around 8 minutes. The Alfa Romeo 4C did 8:04 back in 2013. A “very fast” car like the Ferrari 458 Italia can do it by roughly 7:30. An “extremely fast” car like the Lamborghini Aventador 770-4 SVJ can do it in under seven minutes. These are just production cars though, and the Volkswagen ID R is clearly not a production car.
The previous record holder for the fastest electric car was the Nio EP9, which made 1000 kilowatts or 1,361 horsepower equivalent. The EP9 was only a shade slower than the Lamborghini Aventador 770-4 SVJ at 6:45, which we already knew was “extremely fast.”
The Volkswagen ID R did it 40 seconds faster than a 1,300 horsepower electric car. That is insanely fast!
What’s more surprising is the fact that the ID R makes less power than the previous record holder. It “only” makes around 700 horsepower, but the car has an incredibly lightweight body weighing only 1,100 kilograms or 2,500 pounds. In addition, the ID R sports a very low-drag and high-downforce body, meaning that the car could take the Nordschleife’s 73 turns at a much higher speed.
Just imagine; in a few years, electric race cars like the ID R will be making insane lap times at our favorite tracks like the Circuit de la Sarthe, or even WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca!
