Not looking good for the 'ring

Just read in the German news that the EU commission has prevented the state that owns the Nürburgring to pay further subsidies to it. Effectively that means the company that owns the ring is now bankrupt and at least according to the local newspaper, it is expected that bankruptcy proceedings are going to be starting soon.

There is a good chance that the publicly owned track will have to be sold, which potentially puts its future into question, even though at least this year's event are expected to proceed for now.

This is not good news .

Incredible mis-management. I don't know WTF they were thinking building a mall, convention center and amusement park there. They wasted hundreds of millions of dollars trying to make it into a business/social center vs preserving what made it special

E36 M3, E36 M3, E36 M3. I may have to take the wife's car up there sooner than I thought!

Sell stock in the track for $100 a pop, and have the "dividend" be a free lap or a discounted merchandise or something every year. I'd buy a couple hundred dollars worth if it meant that track would stay open to the public. Surely there's a million people who would be bummed if the 'ring were closed.

Arrgh!

Wasn't it doing okay before the current owners got their hands on it?

Seems like there ought to be some sort of trajectory that involves the current would-be theme park operators taking their lumps and going away and returning to operating the track as a track with the array of local vendors offering supporting services.

I just can't shake the fundamental fact that the track is a wonderful resource, and that the errors of custodians should result in their losing their turn, not the end of the track... Nobody wins if that happens.

JohnInKansas wrote: Sell stock in the track for $100 a pop, and have the "dividend" be a free lap or a discounted merchandise or something every year. I'd buy a couple hundred dollars worth if it meant that track would stay open to the public. Surely there's a million people who would be bummed if the 'ring were closed.

this...... just to preserve my hope of making it to the ring in MY car.... its worth a $100 share

I am actually not too worried. Considering how many manufacturers do testing there, the rich history of the track, the F1 race, I think some private party will step up to the plate. If managed correctly, it will make money, and someone will see that.

There's a difference between the modern F1 circuit (what we'd all recognize as a racetrack) and the big long Nordshleife (sp?) which is what most people think of as the 'Ring. From my understanding, the Nordshleife is basically a public toll road. Or was for years.

I was just near the track a few weeks ago, but it wasn't on our itinerary to stop by.

The 'Ring is very important to manufacturers for testing and bragging rights, but odds are that a private firm will snatch it up and close it to the public. Maybe some races, but mostly as a rental test track.

This is kind of typical of how many tracks get upgraded or saved. You get some one / investors to come in and build things They then realsie that they underestimated both the upgrade costs and the revenue generated by then and go bankrupt. Someone else then steps in and gets everything that was done for pennies on the dollar and makes money via the a tweeked plan that the original investors had just with out all the debt incurred to build the facilities.

dean1484 wrote: This is kind of typical of how many tracks get upgraded or saved. You get some one / investors to come in and build things They then realsie that they underestimated both the upgrade costs and the revenue generated by then and go bankrupt. Someone else then steps in and gets everything that was done for pennies on the dollar and makes money via the a tweeked plan that the original investors had just with out all the debt incurred to build the facilities.

The smart ones are the ones where the first group is involved in the second group.

A trip around there is on my bucket list. This is not good news.

fudge.... I really hope this track continues... But there is lots of money in der Deutschland...

Keith wrote: There's a difference between the modern F1 circuit (what we'd all recognize as a racetrack) and the big long Nordshleife (sp?) which is what most people think of as the 'Ring. From my understanding, the Nordshleife is basically a public toll road. Or was for years.

It still is classified as a public toll road. That's why UK insurance companies can get away with excluding coverage for "public one-way toll roads" as there is only one of those in Western Europe. That's also why your car has to be roadworthy to partake in the "Touristenfahrten".

http://savethering.org/

This has been going on for some time. I don't really expect the Nurburgring to go away I just think that these clowns are going to get kicked out. They were there to manage the public property essentially they don't own the whole thing

ransom wrote: Arrgh! Wasn't it doing okay before the current owners got their hands on it?

IIRC it was doing OK-ish, but only in a possibly breaking even way. The public/private partnership was supposed to solve that but I've been reading for a couple of years now that the people who leased the track and surroundings weren't that great at it to put it mildly.

I vaguely remember that the state had tried to terminate the lease agreement before when the writing started to become visible on the wall but as with a lot of the PPIs, the agreement seems to have been fairly interminable.

ransom wrote: I just can't shake the fundamental fact that the track is a wonderful resource, and that the errors of custodians should result in their losing their turn, not the end of the track... Nobody wins if that happens.

The crazy thing is that it appears that the biggest creditor by far is the state so in theory there is a case to be made for it just to revert to state ownership (which IIRC it is in anyway) and operation by the state, rather than be sold off. But apparently that would constitute illegal state subsidies or something along the lines.

The last part I read suggests that Johann Taxpayer gets stuck with the losses but not the track, as the track might have to be sold and privatised anyway.