Scott Jones

In 2009 I visited the famed Nordschleife, the German public racetrack, and posted about it here. Then in December last year I posted a little story about encountering a Valentino (Vale) Rossi fan in an unexpected place. A few months later I was pleased to receive an email from a German who had read both posts and sent me the following story of his own. It has taken me way to long to share it here, but I’m finally getting around to doing so. The author gave me permission to reprint his take as long as I don’t use his real name, so I’ll call him Hans. I have corrected a few typos for clarity but left most of his English in tact as it adds a delightful flavor to the story. I think fans of Rossi and/or of the Nurburgring will enjoy this, and thanks very much to Hans for writing in!

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Hi Scott!

My name is Hans, I’m 33 years old . I live in Germany next to the Nürburgring and I enjoyed your report about the Nordschleife a lot. I’m a police-officer working at the police station in Adenau next to the Nürburgring. First of all sorry for my bad english. Had better things to do in school than listening to the teacher!

I’ve been a huge Rossi-Fanboy for lots of years and I love travelling to the races in Assen and Sachsenring. MotoGP really means a lot to me. I read your article about the yellow Rossi-Shirt and it was very touching because something similar happened to me last spring.

Me and my colleague were called to a car-accident that happenend on the Nordschleife. The accident-opponent were waiting at the unofficial exit in Breidscheid. There was a German guy in one car and two Swedish guys in the other. It wasn’t easy to find out who was right and who was wrong just by talking about the accident because the situation wasn’t quite clear so I decided to talk to the officials and close the track so that we could have a look to find some evidence on the tarmac where the accident happened.

So we went to the official entry of the Nordschleife with the three “accident-guys” in our police-car. Although they just crashed and damaged their cars there was a quite funny atmosphere in the car. We laughed a lot about stupid things although we only spoke poor English. Having arrived at the Nordschleife we passed the parking area where you took the photo of your Opel Corsa to get to the ticket booth where the officials are placed.

While crossing the parking place the co-pilot of the Swedish guys told us that his own car is parked there. I asked him where it is and he said “It’s the black Porsche 911 with the big yellow 46 on the roof.” I told him that I have a big 46 on my car, too. So he showed me his arm where he got a tattoo of Vale’s autograph. So we started talking about Vale, Stoner, etc. until we arrived at Metzgesfeld.

A week later we met the two Swedish guys again. We stopped the police-car and talked to them. I felt the same way as you described in your report: you meet a complete stranger but you feel familiar because you share the same interest: Valentino Rossi.

We met a few times when he got to Germany last year. I invited him to a barbecue and he invited me to some Ice-Racing in Sweden this winter. After a MotoGP race we send short messages and comment on the racing. It is incredible but I think this wouldn’t have happened if he didn’t show me the 46 on his car. This is the power of Valentino Rossi: Connecting people in the whole world!

I want to say thanks for all the great pictures on motomatters.com and the reports on your own homepage.

Cheers!

Hans

P.S. He was only the co-pilot of the accident. The objectivity of our work wasn’t influenced by the #46 🙂

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In June I got an email from Hans saying that he was meeting his Swedish friend/former suspect in Germany and that they would attend the German G.P. at Sachesnring together, hoping we could all meet face to face. Unfortunately this race was not on my schedule for 2011 and I could not join them. But I hope that 2012 will bring us all to Sachsenring and perhaps, if I’m very lucky, even the Nordschleife. I would love to have another lap or two in something more interesting than last time, and having a local police officer along would only add to the adventure!