Inside the Movement to Name a Nurburgring Corner for Sabine Schmitz

From Road & Track

The racing community, and car enthusiasts worldwide, suffered a tragic loss this week when Sabine Schmitz passed away at the age of 51. Schmitz was the ultimate Nurburgring expert: Born and raised just steps from the famed track, she was the first woman to win the 24 Hours of Nurburgring race, and logged tens of thousands of laps as a legendary Ring Taxi pilot. A 2005 appearance on BBC's Top Gear skyrocketed her to global fame, and launched Schmitz's bright career as a TV host and personality.

Now, in the wake of her untimely death, the Nurburgring community is rallying to honor Schmitz by petitioning the track's owners to rename part of the course in tribute to her.

Dale Lomas, a fellow Ring Taxi veteran and lifelong devotee to the Green Hell (and an occasional contributor to Road & Track), launched the campaign almost immediately upon hearing news of Schmitz's death. "Sabine is a powerful symbol for so many factions," Lomas, who runs the legendary Nurburgring news site Bridge to Gantry, told R&T. "Firstly, she's a racer, a local and successful racer at that. And she started from the bottom. As a local, winning [the 24 Hours of Nurburgring] is a lifetime achievement, and she did it twice on the bounce."

Lomas also stressed that, through her many years of driving the Ring Taxi—where she routinely passed serious track machinery with up to three passengers in tow—Schmitz earned the fierce respect of the touristenfahrten crowd, the die-hards who flock to the track for open-lapping sessions. "The TF crowd is not to underestimated," Lomas told R&T. "They number in the tens of thousands and they spend millions. As a flamboyant Taxi driver, always smiling, smoking out of the chicane at Adenauer Forst 15 times a day, she achieved legendary status with those drivers."

When the Ring was beset by financial troubles in the 2010s, Schmitz threw her full support behind the "Save The Ring" campaign, which fought against the perceived monopolization and corruption of the track's ownership. "She didn't hesitate," Lomas said. "She never lost the respect of the public."