After the long summer break, the VLN Langstreckenmeisterschaft Nürburgring will finally continue on 30th July. With the 34th RCM DMV Grenzlandrennen organised by the Rheydter Club für Motorsport, this most popular endurance racing series will start into the second half of the season. A number of teams and drivers which had caused a lot of excitement last at the ADAC Zurich 24h Race end of June will be at the start. The fantastic number of 14 drivers from the VLN series had scored class wins at the classical long distance race. The successful returnees will start with some tailwind. And those who remained behind their expectations will now all the more try to demonstrate how well they are performing. More than 160 teams will be at the start of the race over four hours on Saturday at 12 o’clock exactly. The positions on the grid will be decided in the timed practice session between 08:30 and 10 am. Entrance is free all around the Nordschleife. Tickets giving access to the paddocks and to the open grandstands at the Grand Prix Circuit are available at the cash boxes for a family-friendly price of 12 Euros. A 30 minutes summary of the race will be shown in channel Sport 1 on 6th of August at 1:00 pm.
Five races, five different winners – this is a summary of the first half of the season. And there is a big chance that a new team will be shown as winner of the coming Grenzlandrennen. From amongst the previous winning teams, only Mamerow-Racing will be at the start of the sixth round. Chris Mamerow (Castrop-Rauxel/ Germany) and Armin Hahne (Wimbach/ Germany) with their Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3 should yet not be underestimated. The team retired in the 24h Race after an accident which was not their fault when they were leading the race. So a second victory would be a most welcome compensation.
Their success could be jeopardized by their make colleagues Michael Zehe (Floersheim/ Germany), Alexander Roloff (Berlin/ Germany) and Roland Rehfeld (Blankenfelde/ Germany), who will also be at the start in the GT3 class for the team of ROWE Racing with a gullwing race car. Amongst the top favourites is also Michael Illbruck (Unterföhring/ Germany) and Manuel Lauck (Lebach/ Germany) who gained pole position at the fourth race with their Porsche 911 GT3 R entered by Pinta-Racing and who have also already covered great distances in the race lead. So far, they have failed to score a proper success but will hence be all the more motivated. A strong performance was shown by Klaus Abbelen and Sabine Schmitz (both from Barweiler) in a Porsche 911 GT3 R when they finished on the podium at the fifth race. The team which will be completed by the fast young driver Niclas Kentenich (Neuss/ Germany) again is decided to finish on the podium. Another strong crew will compete in another GT3 Porsche, former DTM driver Peter Dumbreck (Great Britain) will share the cockpit of the 911 entered by Falken-Motorsport with Sebastian Asch (Ammerbuch/ Germany), son of the long year DTM driver Roland Asch.
Michael Bäder (Mössingen/ Germany) and Tobias Hagenmeyer (Cologne) will bring their spectacular BMW Z4 self-construction to the Nürburgring. The Porsche 911 GT3 MR of the Wochenspiegel Team Manthey will be driven by Georg Weiss (Monschau/ Germany), Oliver Kainz (Kottenheim/ Germany) and Michael Jacobs (Roetgen-Rott/ Germany). Also entered by the team of Manthey-Racing but classified in the Porsche Cup class are Wolfgang Kohler (Aldingen/ Germany), Frank Kräling (Winterberg/ Germany) and Christian Menzel (Kelberg/ Germany) who can look back onto their first result on the podium achieved recently. They finished third overall at the fifth round – and wish to confirm this result.
In particular amongst the middle field of the endurance racing championship, there is a huge number of teams which could celebrate big successes at the 24h Race, to start with the Peugeot works team which scored their second successive class win with the RCZ HDi, to continue with Johannes Scheid and his “Eifelblitz” BMW M3 in class GT4, up to Black Falcon who won the very competitive class V5 with their junior team in a BMW Z4. Last year’s VLN champion Wolf Silvester (Nürnberg/ Germany) also scored a class win at the classical long distance race. In the BMW 320 Si entered by Bonk Motorsport and together with Axel Burkhardt (St. Ingbert/ Germany), Fabian Sigwart (Bergdietikon/ Germany) and Alexander Mies (Heiligenhaus/ Germany) he clearly dominated his competitors. Silvester has entered the Grenzlandrennen again together with his long-time team mate Mario Merten (Nürburg/ Germany). The duo in the BMW Z4 entered by Bonk-Motorsport is aiming at a victory in the class of VLN series production cars up to 3000 cc cylinder capacity. Their strongest competitors in this class will be the aforementioned Black-Falcon juniors Carsten Knechtges (Mayen/ Germany), Manuel Metzger (Rickenbach-Hütten/ Germany) and Tim Scheerbarth (Dormagen/ Germany). The trio has scored three of five possible class wins in the season so far and Silvestern and Merten two.
