11 Aug 06
On foot, the Foxhole is a collection of meandering bends that flows gently downhill before climbing into a lazy sweeping left-hand curve. In a charging Chrysler 300C SRT-8, it's a whip-crack 100mph flurry of tight turns that test body control and chassis dynamics to the extreme. Shimmering tarmac, new-old-new Armco, towering oaks and candy-stick rumble strips are hurtling towards me at unfeasible speeds.
The big American saloon hunkers down, bullets through the curves and rockets up the incline with only the slightest of squirms at the bottom, as the front strut and multi-link rear suspension gets heavily compressed. Then it's hard on the brakes, pitch it left into Adenau Forest and onto the next part of this impossibly demanding Nurburgring. All the way through, the Chrysler feels capable and at home.
The car's makers are keen to demonstrate that their newly hotted-up 300C - complete with 6.1-litre V8 Hemi engine - is sharp enough to take on the 13 miles of Europe's most demanding road circuit, which is open to the public for about a tenner a lap. That's a lot of confidence, because the Nurburgring will mercilessly expose any dynamic shortfalls within a single lap.
