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Nurburgring Fatal Accident


theduck

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I know there are a few members on here into their motorbikes, and so I am sure a few of you will know of Brendan Keirle, he ran sliders guest house in Germany, a popular destination for motorcyclists visiting the Nurburgring. Though he was most famously known as The Baron in motorcylce news.

 

I stayed with Brendan when I visited the Nurburgring in 2011 and ever since have considered him a fiend. He was a fantastic bloke who made the visit very enjoyable, he also converted me from a person who really didn't like dogs into someone who now loves all dogs. He did one other thing for me to, he sold me a Robin Hood s7 that was in his dad's garage part built.

 

Today, the world lost Brendan, he died in an accident on the Nurburgring. Not on a motorbike as you might expect if you knew him, he had already been airlifted from the ring twice in his life. No he died doing something else he was well known for, he died trying to help others. As far as early reports go a car had pulled over because it was burning oil, possibly been dropping oil, on a particularly dangerous part of the ring. It seems in order to try and make sure this didn't lead to an accident, he was trying to flag down other cars. Now, before I go further I should mention that Brendan was a qualified marshal on the Nurburgring for many years, so this was someone who knew what they were doing. Unfortunately, there was an accident involving a car, and Brendan lost his life.

 

I have been saying for years I was going to go back and stay with Brendan again, going to take his old kit car out to see him, now it's too late.

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  • 3 years later...
Guest Trevor Keirle

I have just read your post from 4 years ago when Bren was killed on the Nurburgring and noticed you are the guy who bought his S7.

I am Trevor, his dad, and I was having a nostalgic trawl of the internet posts as I sit here on wet day here in central Portugal - half way between Lisbon and Porto - having moved here in 2014 and had Bren here 'over wintering' when he helped with restoration works.

Since his death, I have acquired a garage full of bikes and an MX5 rather than the half built S7 that we started when he was in RAF Locking during the time he was on his first posting to signals training.   

So, do you still have it ? If so, you have a pic, I'd appreciate one please.

I run a lightly modded '92 Nissan 200sx s13 in the UK - looks dead standard but in which have clocked just sub 9 min on the Nurburgring.  It has a de-cat ss exhaust, lowered adjustable damper suspension, replaced air inlet filter etc and a replaced and socketed EMU with Stage l and ll chips - which put it in the mid 200's bhp without engine mods - Needs better brakes!!!  Here, I content myself with a little A200 2l CDI - and even with that nothing much passes me in this backwater. Portugal doesn't like modded cars so the Nissan lives in the UK and Bren's MX5 is still on Spanish plates, which he hadn't noticed, are his Grandad's house number and his initials.

My laptop is down at the moment and I don't get it back until mid week ( just charging socket and board) hopefully, but this is Portugal!!!

Covid, locally, is no problem with nothing local - personally I am two weeks away from second jab.

In 2018, after Bren's death, my partner and I decided to marry, Bren's mom had died in 1999. And we had sold both houses - keeping a flat in Brown hills.

Lockdown here is pretty strict with confinement to borough boundaries.

Hope to hear from you but leave it until mid next week to mail me.

regards

Trev.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Guest Trevor Keirle
On 5/14/2017 at 10:49 PM, theduck said:

I know there are a few members on here into their motorbikes, and so I am sure a few of you will know of Brendan Keirle, he ran sliders guest house in Germany, a popular destination for motorcyclists visiting the Nurburgring. Though he was most famously known as The Baron in motorcylce news.

 

I stayed with Brendan when I visited the Nurburgring in 2011 and ever since have considered him a fiend. He was a fantastic bloke who made the visit very enjoyable, he also converted me from a person who really didn't like dogs into someone who now loves all dogs. He did one other thing for me to, he sold me a Robin Hood s7 that was in his dad's garage part built.

 

Today, the world lost Brendan, he died in an accident on the Nurburgring. Not on a motorbike as you might expect if you knew him, he had already been airlifted from the ring twice in his life. No he died doing something else he was well known for, he died trying to help others. As far as early reports go a car had pulled over because it was burning oil, possibly been dropping oil, on a particularly dangerous part of the ring. It seems in order to try and make sure this didn't lead to an accident, he was trying to flag down other cars. Now, before I go further I should mention that Brendan was a qualified marshal on the Nurburgring for many years, so this was someone who knew what they were doing. Unfortunately, there was an accident involving a car, and Brendan lost his life.

 

I have been saying for years I was going to go back and stay with Brendan again, going to take his old kit car out to see him, now it's too late.

I have just read your post from 4 years ago when Bren was killed on the Nurburgring and noticed you are the guy who bought his S7.

I am Trevor, his dad, and I was having a nostalgic trawl of the internet posts as I sit here on wet day here in central Portugal - half way between Lisbon and Porto - having moved here in 2014 and had Bren here 'over wintering' when he helped with restoration works.

Since his death, I have acquired a garage full of bikes and an MX5 rather than the half built S7 that we started when he was in RAF Locking during the time he was on his first posting to signals training.   

So, do you still have it ? If so, you have a pic, I'd appreciate one please.

I run a lightly modded '92 Nissan 200sx s13 in the UK - looks dead standard but in which have clocked just sub 9 min on the Nurburgring.  It has a de-cat ss exhaust, lowered adjustable damper suspension, replaced air inlet filter etc and a replaced and socketed EMU with Stage l and ll chips - which put it in the mid 200's bhp without engine mods - Needs better brakes!!!  Here, I content myself with a little A200 2l CDI - and even with that nothing much passes me in this backwater. Portugal doesn't like modded cars so the Nissan lives in the UK and Bren's MX5 is still on Spanish plates, which he hadn't noticed, are his Grandad's house number and his initials.

My laptop is down at the moment and I don't get it back until mid week ( just charging socket and board) hopefully, but this is Portugal!!!

Covid, locally, is no problem with nothing local - personally I am two weeks away from second jab.

In 2018, after Bren's death, my partner and I decided to marry, Bren's mom had died in 1999. And we had sold both houses - keeping a flat in Brown hills.

Lockdown here is pretty strict with confinement to borough boundaries.

Hope to hear from you but leave it until mid next week to mail me.

regards

Trev.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Hi Trev, really good to hear from you and that you are keeping well. 
 

The S7 went through a few iterations with me and I’ll share some photos and details below: 

 

when I picked it up from you:

E95C2B49-0DB2-410D-89D9-6B60C6616554.jpeg

 

Then in November 2015 it went through the IVA and registration with a 1.6 pinto and 4 speed box and looked like this:

AB60AB36-1A4E-4077-BA66-92B1419EA6F5.jpeg

 

Then it almost immediately came back off the road for winter and had a 2.0 pinto and 5 speed fitted, but in the process of doing so decided that wasn’t going to be enough and so using a pinto efi setup from a late model Sierra I converted to efi and turbo charged it  it made a round 150-160bhp at this stage.

10B37929-F4A3-4AAD-AE3A-4355D16294E1.jpeg


soon after that I decided to fit proper a mapable ecu and turned it myself. It ran great and was much nicer to drive with that setup and made around 180bhp. 
 

0C06FE21-1769-4508-B990-1384D45E7048.jpeg

 

then came the big rebuild! Over this time id become good friends with my local engine builder and tuner, and we agreed I’d pull the head and he would do some porting and maybe we’d fit a cam, and while the head was off I was going to try and improve the looks of the car. That all changed when I went to sell the head off as my wife came with me and she told Steve (my tuner) that he needed to convince me to just build it once and do it right. In that instant the spec changed completely.
 

The engine ended up getting a complete overhaul, steel rods, cosworth pistons, ported head, big valves, custom profile cam we designed to suit turbo application but still rev. In the end the only thing stock was the block! To complement this we fitted a Tran-x straight cut gearbox and a Quaife LSD diff, and of course, a bigger turbo. This setup ended up with 300bhp and revving rover 8k rpm!

 

Because of this extra engine work and the fact I was building a custom body and making over improvements to the chassis. The rebuild over ran, but it was (just about) back on the road for the annual pilgrimage to wales looking like this

95E36577-3E1A-43D8-B9DA-CC750AFC033E.jpeg
 

At this point (august 2019)  we had really found, and past, the limits of what the chassis was really capable of handling. Also with that much power in that car, I was suddenly very conscious of how vulnerable you were when driving it.  The plan at this point was to do some more improvements to it over winter, fit a quicker steering rack, bigger brakes, finish the body etc.
 

However in December 2019 a car came up that I felt would make the perfect home for the pinto turbo setup, and so the S7 was stripped back to a rolling chassis in a more traditional seven style, and was sold to make way for my new car. That build is now nearing completion and I hope to get some miles on it this summer. 

5984376F-C9B2-4C74-8224-6A6349B9680D.jpeg

 

I owe a lot to you and Brendan. Buying the S7 taught me more than I could ever dream I would know about building and working on cars and through it I have made many friends of people I would never have met if it wasn’t for that car, so thank you!

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  • 1 month later...

Hi

Just picked up your reply as I remember this day.   I now have a garage full of bikes etc. and have just had a new electric roller door fitted to replace the the old metal half sliding doors - give full opening access.

Thanks for the pics if the S7 - what a transformation.  The build was started in a lock up garage on the RAF base at Locking near Weston super Mare.  The donor was a blue Sierra that progressively became scrap.  I recall lots of my tools became repatriated to Weston.  It came to Burntwood when he was posted to Staverton Glos.  I recall he'd owned a series of Skoda's one with twin webers and a 4 branch exhaust a real XR3 eater.  It languished in Burntwood for ages until you bought it.

I'm not surprised it was a handful with 300bhp.   The riveted ss sheet box chassis had its limitations - not forgetting the build quality of course.  Brendan did improve with age.

I'm sure you must have had many hours of pleasure from the car as you sure feel in touch when driving an open car.  He had a Westfield 11 with I think, an Alfa 2 litre, at one stage - and that was a hair raising ride round the  'ring.  In the wet it spent a lot of time facing he wrong way.  I well remember my first drive in a single seater - Lotus formula Junior -  noisy, exposed and all sorts of bits flying past your head from exposed front and rear exposed tyres.

Still, you new little Pop/Prefect?  looks a pretty fierce motor two - the guy that lived in the bungalow dead opposite where you loaded the S7 had a grey one.  At last you'll stay dry!!!  Hope all goes well over the summer.  We have been jabbed and this area of Portugal (central) is virtually free of Covid.  Hope too, that you are keeping clear of infections - it has certainly changed the way we live for the foreseeable future

Yea, Bren was a quick guy.  At about 10 yo he would handbrake turn my Princess on the Chasewater Kart track car park and on his little Sabre kart I've seen him win by more than a lap in the wet.  We keep a flat in the UK only a few hundred yards from Chasewater but have not been back since May last year. 

A Tamworth guy found a sister kart to Bren's old Sabre - only a few exist - he restored it and Bren was due to drive it in an Historic Race, just after he died.  Instead, Mike had an old steering wheel off Bren's kart and converted into an annual trophy for young  Driver of Day award at their club meetings.  

Lot's of little things still keep cropping up.  I have his 'Baron' leathers here too and intend to put them in our reception room which Bren did a fair bit of work on.  Every time I go out onto the terrace here I see one of the wall lights he put up at an odd angle - he was going to straighten it up but it can stay as 'Bren's wonky light' that Hazel has christened it.

If you ever fancy a trip / break out here feel free to show up - we have a 2 bedroom (doubles) self contained annex with full kitchen lounge and shower room - no pool, sorry.  I email pics if you send me your em.  You have mine I think from my log in.

Hope to keep in touch.

Trev

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Hi

Just picked up your reply as I remember this day.   I now have a garage full of bikes etc. and have just had a new electric roller door fitted to replace the the old metal half sliding doors - give full opening access.

Thanks for the pics if the S7 - what a transformation.  The build was started in a lock up garage on the RAF base at Locking near Weston super Mare.  The donor was a blue Sierra that progressively became scrap.  I recall lots of my tools became repatriated to Weston.  It came to Burntwood when he was posted to Staverton Glos.  I recall he'd owned a series of Skoda's one with twin webers and a 4 branch exhaust a real XR3 eater.  It languished in Burntwood for ages until you bought it.

I'm not surprised it was a handful with 300bhp.   The riveted ss sheet box chassis had its limitations - not forgetting the build quality of course.  Brendan did improve with age.

I'm sure you must have had many hours of pleasure from the car as you sure feel in touch when driving an open car.  He had a Westfield 11 with I think, an Alfa 2 litre, at one stage - and that was a hair raising ride round the  'ring.  In the wet it spent a lot of time facing he wrong way.  I well remember my first drive in a single seater - Lotus formula Junior -  noisy, exposed and all sorts of bits flying past your head from exposed front and rear exposed tyres.

Still, you new little Pop/Prefect?  looks a pretty fierce motor two - the guy that lived in the bungalow dead opposite where you loaded the S7 had a grey one.  At last you'll stay dry!!!  Hope all goes well over the summer.  We have been jabbed and this area of Portugal (central) is virtually free of Covid.  Hope too, that you are keeping clear of infections - it has certainly changed the way we live for the foreseeable future

Yea, Bren was a quick guy.  At about 10 yo he would handbrake turn my Princess on the Chasewater Kart track car park and on his little Sabre kart I've seen him win by more than a lap in the wet.  We keep a flat in the UK only a few hundred yards from Chasewater but have not been back since May last year. 

A Tamworth guy found a sister kart to Bren's old Sabre - only a few exist - he restored it and Bren was due to drive it in an Historic Race, just after he died.  Instead, Mike had an old steering wheel off Bren's kart and converted into an annual trophy for young  Driver of Day award at their club meetings.  

Lot's of little things still keep cropping up.  I have his 'Baron' leathers here too and intend to put them in our reception room which Bren did a fair bit of work on.  Every time I go out onto the terrace here I see one of the wall lights he put up at an odd angle - he was going to straighten it up but it can stay as 'Bren's wonky light' that Hazel has christened it.

If you ever fancy a trip / break out here feel free to show up - we have a 2 bedroom (doubles) self contained annex with full kitchen lounge and shower room - no pool, sorry.  I email pics if you send me your em.  You have mine I think from my log in.

Hope to keep in touch.

Trev

 

 

 

 

 

 

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