So, It's time to write a summary of my days in the green hell in may 2014. We took the ferry to Kiel as we wanted a calm start and as little driving as possible. Autobahn is fun the first hour and the first times you can put the pedal to the metal, but after that it is just boring! Picture from the ferry outwards Oslofjord (I could see my house an hour later on the way south) : just before arrival in Kiel: So after testing top speed a couple of times we settled down to 140-150km/h were the GTV seems to enjoy itself. Not too much noise, fuel consumption and speed are a good compromise. The 155 also managed to keep up in this speed. Kiel to Adenau was scheduled to take 6 hours. So a stop in Rotenburg (my regular Gasthaus is there) we stopped for lunch. Cars and ourselves started now to adapt the speeds, and long driving on the motorways. We continued after re-fuelling and arrived Adenau approx. 17:30. Perfect time for check-in, food and beers! Before any food and drinks we took a short drive around the area and up to Eisbach/Brunchen curves. The weather was great and temperature around 20 degrees. In the hotel booking I wrote (meant as a joke) that I would like a picture of the Alfa Romeo logo on the room: Next day (tuesday) we decided to spend the day by "trackwakling". We had a plan to rent bicycles, but the weather was not on our side, so we took the berlina We were lucky and there was stage-training on Nordschleife this day. We started in Bergwerk and were able to sit next to an instructor that was judging all the drivers. This was excellent for us because we could pick up a lot of tricks and brake/turn-in points! Great to see good and bad examples before we were driving on Thursday and Friday. I have some short videos that I will post later. Steilstrecke Karusell: This is an interesting corner(Wherselten), with braking point in to a corner just before this, then a new in to this curve: If you see the "V" in the tarmac you are supposed to turn in just where that starts-> on the right side. The next day (wednesday) we checked out of the hotel in Adenau and went up to Adenauer Horst before checking in to Granturismo event. Still stage training, gave us valuable input on brake and turn-in points. After check in to the new Hotel (Linder), we went up to the old castle to eat our lunch. This gives you a very special view over the area where the Nordschleife is in: The weather was typical of the area with rain and sun every other time... After lunch, we went to a service station to wash our cars and prepare for the event. Race Ready: On the evening there was a "turistenfahrt" session so we bought tickets for a couple of rounds just to warm up for the following day. The GP-strecke was open for us the same time, so we decided after two laps on the Nordschleife to go over to try the GP-strecke. From Turistenfahrt and GP: After a couple of rounds on the GP strecke my GTV suddenly stopped.... Just a short cut, then no ignition... After I was towed to the depot we immediately started the troubleshooting. An hour later after checking fuel delivery and spark plugs we opened the ignition distributor. Found the rotor to spin without engine running... hmmmmm wierd! The rotor is supposed to be attached to the camshaft, not spin around just by touching it... This led to further investigation and we removed the housing. There we found the splint that attaches the rotor to the camshaft to be broken off... Erik pointing at the connector to the camshaft to me: What next, time was nine in the evening and it was getting late... After pushing the GTV out of the Pit area on the GP-strecke we jumped in the 155 Berlina and searched for this sleeve. My friend Erik is a old friend of Ron Simmons, so we went there first. They could not help, but recommended to go to the hotel, take a beer, then go to a garage in the industry area next morning. We were still hoping, so we went down for a quick look to see if anyone still were on work. Luckily the light was on and a man on a milling machine pointed at the door around the corner. Well inside we discovered several treats! And the rest is for our eyes only! The man inside laughed and rushed over to the huge(!) Wuerth system full of wuerth accessories! Found the correct sleeve, cut it to correct length and knocked it in for us. We asked if we could have a few more sleeves in spare just in case. I asked how much he wanted for the help, he said nothing, but I gave him 10 EUR to a beer! He smiled all the way and wished us good luck with our Alfas Back to the car we now had 50/50 chance for the timing to be correct. The connector to the rotor is slightly offset, so it could happen that we had to knock it out and turn 180deg... ....Of course.. pffft,pfftpfftpftt was the sound when I turned the key... Out again, turn 180 degrees, knock sleeve back in re-assemble then... Busso is ALIVE! Dinner started at nine, we got back at eleven! Dirty and thirsty as hell and with a great surprise, the dinner was still open. And free food and drink were a happy end of this first day! Thursday, first day on Nordschleife I started off a bit gently. With yesterday in fresh memory... After a while I forgot yesterdays problem, and the tempo increased! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7jNFOKRQK8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Naz4Af_FV3E Ca halvway through the rear pads are spread all over the rims.. Was new before we left home A smart way to not slip out of the leather seats: 155 in action: Not much more to say, the images can talk for itself: Last thing to say on friday is a in action photo session of all cars: From our way home: You know that the pads are finished when this light is on: On the ferry from Hirtshals: That was more or less it... Will update the post with some more videos from stage training and my laps... I already miss the green hell! Maybe a trip later in october...