'Queen of the Nurburgring,' Sabine Schmitz Dies at 51

Former racing driver Sabine Schmitz, the 'Queen of the Nürburgring' who was also a presenter of the popular BBC "Top Gear" television program, has died at age 51. "The Nürburgring has lost its most famous female racing driver. Sabine Schmitz passed away far too early after a long illness. We will miss her and her cheerful nature. Rest in peace Sabine!" read a tweet put out by track management.Schmitz grew up near the Nürburgring, a fearsome track that winds through the hills of western Germany. Its 13-mile Nordschleife configuration is regarded as one of the most demanding and dangerous tracks in the world. In 1996, Schmitz — then racing as Sabine Reck — became the first and only woman to ever win the 24-hours of Nürburgring endurance race, piloting her BMW M3 to victory with teammates Johannes Scheid and Hans Widmann. She repeated the feat with Scheid, Hans-Jürgen Tiemann and Peter Zakowski the following year. She also won the VLN championship of endurance races at the Nürburgring in 1998.In 2004, Schmitz joined the BBC show Top Gear alongside Chris Evans and Jeremy Clarkson. Also known as 'the world's fastest taxi driver' for the passenger rides she gave around the 20.8km Nordschleife — the north loop of the old "Green Hell" circuit — Schmitz estimated she had lapped it more than 20,000 times.She put her intimate knowledge of the circuit on display during her Top Gear days. For instance, when she famously piloted a Ford van around it in just over 10 minutes — seconds shy of besting Clarkson's time in a Jaguar. "Terrible news about Sabine Schmitz. Such a sunny person and so full of beans," Clarkson said on Twitter.The BBC said the next episode of the long-running show will be dedicated to Schmitz. “Sabine radiated positivity, always wore her cheeky smile no matter how hard things got — and was a force of nature for women drivers in the motoring world,” executive producer Clare Pizey told the BBC.