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      09-25-2011, 12:33 PM   #1
Alpina_B3_Lux
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Drives: Audi R8 LMX, BMW M550i xDrive
Join Date: Feb 2008
Location: Germany

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2009 335i  [8.90]
PHOTOSHOOT: BMW 335i E90 LCI - Alpina 19" wheels + Track Day Nürburgring Nordschleife

Car of the month January 2012!

PHOTOSHOOT: BMW 335i E90 LCI - Alpina 19" wheels + Track Day Nürburgring Nordschleife

1. Alpina Classic wheels 19" - design 2010

In general I have to say that I'm rather a fan of understatement when it comes to cars. Although I can admire outrageously designed supercars like Ferrari and Lamborghini, for myself I much prefer driving a car that looks quite normal, but is capable of much, much more than you could realise from looking at it.

That being said, of course it shouldn't look too shabby either. Which is why when I ordered my 335i E90 LCI (in spite of being tempted by a Maserati at that time), I specced it up with some bits of the BMW Individual program (such as the colour azurite black or the interior Merino Champagne leather) and wheels from Alpina - of course in 19 inches, everything else doesn't look so good on the current 3 series sedan.

Now, when at the end of last year Alpina announced that they had renovated their "Classic" wheels a bit, making them more turbine-style like, I knew that I would eventually want to see these new wheels on my car. In particular when I saw them live on the new Alpina B5 Biturbo and thought they were extremely good-looking, a bit more on the sportive side than before.
At the beginning of this year - in February, to be precise - I therefor ordered a set from my local Alpina dealer. They had only just been made available for non-Alpina cars; as you may or may not know, Alpina does not sell all the bits they have on their cars to non-Alpina cars but only very selective bits such as the wheels or the spoilers, or more recently an additional oil cooler for the 335i. The Alpina rims have always been very expensive - but then they are worth it, in my opinion. Made by BBS, with their unique 20-spoke-lightweight design, a lock behind the central wheel hub to make things for car thiefs more difficult, and which also hides the valve. I'm really pleased how these new wheels look, they're sportive and elegant at the same time, and also weight-optimised. For 19", they do not look too oversized - actually my winter wheels (BMW Performance 269) look slightly bigger on the car.

At the same time, I also got new tires and took the opportunity to mount the new Michelin Pilot Super Sport tires that had just come out (as a successor to the Pilot Sport 2). But this here isn't about the tires (I posted on this in the relevant forum), so let's see some photos!

Here they are:

1. Close-up of the Alpina wheels:
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2. Frontal view (1):
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3. Frontal view (2):
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4. Side view:
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5. Side rear view:
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6. Rear view:
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2. Track Day at the Nürburgring - July 2011

Those of you who have followed my threads about the various modifications I have been doing to my car (see all of them here: 335i E90 LCI - Experiences and review of various modifications (long!)) know that since I bought my car roughly 2 1/2 years ago it has become much more powerful, faster and more agile.

However, one component that was not able to keep up with this was…the driver! So this season - besides doing some minor modifications to my car - I wanted to "tune the driver". I have been driving for some time on the Nordschleife of the Nürburgring, the famous "green hell" as it was dubbed by Niki Lauda, and already had more than 100 laps under my belt. Lucky me, living so close to it! Helped until now by a few experienced friends and in particular expert driver and forum moderator (UK) E92Fan who has taught me a lot about this track, its delights and its difficulties, I wanted to further improve my driving skills.

Therefor I participated at a track day on the Nordschleife in July 2011. Now, without going into too many details about this - after all, this is a sub-forum for photos mostly -, a track day basically means that the relevant track is not open to the general public (as the Nordschleife is on certain days in the year), but rented by an organiser on that specific day, and only those who booked this track day with this organiser can drive there. Mostly your car will have to be street-legal, and you usually can't run with slicks (but semis are allowed) and have to wear a helmet while driving. For the Nordschleife, just driving there for the whole day (as much as you want to) costs around 550 EUR. There are usually around 100-130 cars that have booked for such a track day on the Nordschleife, and this time there were quite a few stunning ones such as Lamborghinis and Ferraris (and many, many Porsches of course).

However, I went one step further and also booked an instructor together with a few friends of mine, so that someone could slap me on my wrist when I was doing stuff wrong, and could generally correct me and improve my lines over the day. I booked all of it through Oliver Grams' website (Sportscar Driver Training - Oliver Grams) as I had heard good things about him, and an instructor with several thousand laps taught me quite a few things over the day.

The Nordschleife is quite long - almost 21 kilometers, and has lots of ups and downs with an overall difference of several hundred meters that your car has to drive through. Depending on your speed, it takes between 8-10 minutes for one lap, and one usually says that you need a minimum of around 100 laps to start knowing the track. Here's a map of it so that you can see what it looks like:



It was loads of fun driving that day. The weather gods were favourable (for once! my next track day in September was almost completely in the wet), and I did around 15-17 laps over the whole day. Which does not sound much, but I can tell you that driving more than 300 km all-out on a racetrack with lots of other cars is really exhausting! What I always find fascinating is that due to its immense length, the Nordschleife is never boring or repetitive, and there are always more things to learn as the track changes with the weather conditions, but also very much with the speed you drive on it. The Fuchsröhre for example can seem relatively harmless when you drive through it at 120 km/h - it's a totally different matter when you hammer through it at 190 km/h.

Enough said - here are the photos. All were taken by the excellent professional motorsports photographer Jochen van Cauwenberge alias Frozenspeed (here's his website: Frozenspeed Motorsport Photography). I hope you'll enjoy them - and let me know if you're in the vicinity!

Alpina_B3_Lux

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1. Approaching a corner (1):
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2. Approaching a corner (2):
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3. Front view - approaching a corner (1):
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4. Front view - approaching a corner (2):
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5. Side view - going fast!:
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6. Side view - going fast! (2):
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7. Rear view - you can see how hilly the Nordschleife is:
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8. Driving through the famous Caracciola-Karussell (1):
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9. Driving through the famous Caracciola-Karussell (2):
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10. Being chased by a race-prepped E46 M3 CSL (1):
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11. Being chased by a race-prepped E46 M3 CSL (2):
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12. Being chased by a race-prepped E46 M3 CSL (3):
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13. Another drive through the Karussell:
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14. Another drive through the Karussell (2):
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15. Another drive through the Karussell (3):
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16. Another drive through the Karussell (4):
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__________________
Audi R8 LMX, BMW M550i xDrive (G30 LCI); gone: Alpina B3 3,3 (E46), BMW 335i, Audi R8 V10 manual, Audi R8 V10, BMW M235i, BMW 550i F10

Last edited by Alpina_B3_Lux; 01-04-2012 at 11:15 AM..
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