Save The Ring campaign

The internet is currently buzzing with stories that the company controlling the Nurburgring is up to €400m in debt and is at risk of closing down. In Autumn 2010 a Facebook Save The Ring campaign and e-petition were started. Links to both are below.

The Nurburgring scandal is not new and has been documented (mainly in the German language media) since 2009. The operators of the Nurburgring have very large debts that they will struggle to repay, but the Ring isn't the first tourist attraction to get into financial difficulty because it raised too much debt based on over-ambitious revenue projections. However the Nurburgring's operators can go bankrupt without interruption to the trading operations.

Touristfahrten events earn a lot of revenue for the Nurburgring and the Eifel region, and given that it is the expensive new tourist attractions that are responsible for the debt problems, not the Nordschleife and GP tracks (which are profitable), I personally would expect the core track business to continue operating even if the Ring is taken over by the lending banks, new owners, or even handed back to the State.

The Nurburgring recently released Touristfahrten dates and times to the end of 2011. There is no apparent reduction in the number of Touristfahrten "Tourist Driving" sessions. There is a notice on the website that the Nordschleife will be open to visitors as much as possible.

The last update of this page was on 20th April 2011. I will add more information as I find it but in the meantime see below resources and the Facebook and petition links