In the early 1920s, ADAC Eifelrennen races were held on the twisty 33.2 km (20.6 mi) Nideggen public road circuit near Cologne and Bonn.

Around 1925, the construction of a dedicated race track was proposed just south of the Nideggen circuit around the ancient castle of the town of Nürburg, following the examples of Italy's Monza and Targa Florio courses, and Berlin's AVUS, yet with a different character.

Memorable pre-war races at the circuit featured the talents of early Ringmeister (Ringmasters) such as Rudolf Caracciola, Tazio Nuvolari, and Bernd Rosemeyer.

Over half a century later, even the highest performing road cars still have difficulty breaking 8 minutes without a professional race driver or one very familiar with the track.

In 1970, after the fatal crash of Piers Courage at Zandvoort, the F1 drivers decided at the French Grand Prix to boycott the Nürburgring unless major changes were made, as they had done at Spa the year before.

In accordance with the demands of the F1 drivers, the Nordschleife was reconstructed by taking out some bumps, smoothing out some sudden jumps (particularly at Brünnchen), and installing Armco safety barriers.

Niki Lauda, the reigning world champion and only person ever to lap the full 22.835 km (14.189 mi) Nordschleife in under seven minutes (6:58.6, 1975), proposed to the other drivers that they boycott the circuit in 1976.

Lauda was saved by the combined actions of fellow drivers Arturo Merzario, Guy Edwards, Brett Lunger, Emerson Fittipaldi and Harald Ertl.

The crash also showed that the track's distances were too long for regular fire engines and ambulances, even though the "ONS-Staffel" was equipped with a Porsche 911 rescue car, marked (R).

This lap held the all-time record for 35 years (partially because no major racing has taken place there since 1984) until it was surpassed by Timo Bernhard in the Porsche 919 Hybrid Evo, which ran the slightly longer version of the circuit in 5:19.546- averaging 233.8 km/h (145.3 mph) on 29 June 2018.

The 1984 Nürburgring Race of Champions featured an array of notable drivers driving identical Mercedes 190E 2.3–16's: the line-up was Elio de Angelis, Jack Brabham (Formula 1 World Champion 1959, 1960, 1966), Phil Hill (1961), Denis Hulme (1967), James Hunt (1976), Alan Jones (1980), Jacques Laffite, Niki Lauda (1975, 1977)*, Stirling Moss, Alain Prost*, Carlos Reutemann, Keke Rosberg (1982), Jody Scheckter (1979), Ayrton Senna*, John Surtees (1964) and John Watson.

For 2002, the track was changed, by replacing the former "Castrol-chicane" at the end of the start/finish straight with a sharp right-hander (nicknamed "Haug-Hook"), in order to create an overtaking opportunity.

BMW Sauber's Nick Heidfeld made history on 28 April 2007 as the first driver in over thirty years to tackle the Nürburgring Nordschleife track in a contemporary Formula One car.

Conceived largely as a photo opportunity, the lap times were not as fast as the car was capable of, BMW instead needing to run the chassis at a particularly high ride height to allow for the Nordschleife's abrupt gradient changes and to limit maximum speeds accordingly.

Normal ticket buyers on tourist days cannot quite complete a full lap of the 20.832 km (12.944 mi) Nordschleife, which bypasses the modern GP-Strecke, as they are required to slow down and pass through a 200-metre (220 yd) "pit lane" section where toll gates are installed.

[21] Drivers who have crashed into the barriers, suffered mechanical failure or been otherwise required to be towed off track during Touristenfahrten sessions are referred to as having joined the "Bongard Club".

This nickname is derived from the name of the company which operates the large yellow recovery flatbed trucks which ferry those unfortunate drivers and their vehicles to the nearest exit.

[22] Due to the high volume of traffic, there is an emphasis on quickly clearing and repairing any compromised safety measures so the track can be immediately re-opened for use.

[26][27][28] For sixteen weeks per year, the "industry pool" (Industrie-Pool) rents exclusive daytime use of the track for automotive development and endurance testing.

[45] The Nordschleife operates in a clockwise direction, and was formerly known for its abundance of sharp crests, causing fast-moving, firmly-sprung racing cars to jump clear off the track surface at many locations.

[48][49] A tight right-hand corner, coming just after a long, fast section and a left-hand kink on a small crest, was where Carel Godin de Beaufort fatally crashed.

The entrance to the corner is blind, although Juan Manuel Fangio is reputed to have advised a young driver to "aim for the tallest tree," a feature that was also built into the rendering of the circuit in the Gran Turismo 4 and Grand Prix Legends video games.

It is named after German pre-WWII racing driver Rudolf Caracciola, who reportedly made the corner his own by hooking the inside tires into a drainage ditch to help his car "hug" the curve.

Shortly after the Karussell is a steep section, with gradients in excess of 16%, leading to a right-hander called Hohe Acht, which is some 300 m higher in altitude than Breidscheid.

Then, after a jump at the end of the switchback section, it goes through a flat-out, top gear right-hander and into a short straight that leads into two very fast curves called the Schwalbenschwanz (Swallow's Tail).

Once this part of the track is dealt with, the drivers are near the end of the lap; with two more corners Galgenkopf to negotiate before the 2.135 km (1.327 mi) long Döttinger Höhe straight.

The Südschleife was rarely used after the Nordschleife was rebuilt and updated in 1970 and 1971, and was finally destroyed by the building of the current Nürburgring Grand Prix circuit in the early 1980s.

Tight corners soon gave way to fast downhill sections with flowing bends until, at the outskirts of the nearby town of Müllenbach, the track turned sharply right northwards and began a long climb up the hill.

In 1938 a small section of new track (the Stichstraße) was laid which allowed drivers nearing the end of the Südschleife to bypass the start/finish straights and take a right turn which led back to the start of the downhill twists.

The lap record on the Südschleife is held by Helmut Kelleners with 2:38.6 minutes = 175.85 km/h (109.27 mph), driven with a March 707 in the CanAm run of the 3rd International AvD SCM circuit race on 18 October 1970.