Spring is here, at least in the US. The grass is green; the birds are chirping; and cars are making wonderfully obscene noises around the Nürburgring. It was nip and tuck for a while, but it looks like there will be a season of racing at the Nürburgring this year. The Green Hell's first race of the season is a Veranstaltergemeinschaft Langstreckenpokal Nürburgring, which is thankfully shortened to VLN, this weekend, and practice has begun. 

Our first video this week comes from practice for this weekend's VLN race. Jürgen Alzen is in a Ford GT. The audio is quite good, and the driving is amazing. If you really like these types of videos the VLN has its own Youtube channel with many great 'Ring racing videos. Thanks to Bridge to Gantry for pointing this video out. 

The Alzen family is almost legendary in the modern history of the Nürburgring. Jürgen's brother Uwe came in fifth in his class at the 12 Hours of Sebring two weeks ago. He is famous for driving a Porsche Turbo with between 500hp-700hp and 650Nm-850Nm torque depending on what the driver needs with a custom all-wheel drive system in the VLN in 2005. While that number might seem low at first blush, remember this car was built in 2005. At the time even a Porsche GT2 has 480hp, and the 500hp version based on the 997 chassis was not due for another four years. 

That is enough videos from the 'Ring. We do not usually cover drifting on this site, but this bears posting. In the D1GP, which is one of the drifting leagues, there is a Scion FR-S with a Toyota V8. It sounds incredibly angry. 

Finally, here is a great video from a hillclimb in Switzerland. It features a great collection of European race cars with a few pure race cars thrown in as well.