At the sixth round of the VLN Langstreckenmeisterschaft Nürburgring, Michael Zehe (Floersheim/ Germany), Alexander Roloff (Berlin/ Germany) and Roland Rehfeld (Blankenfelde/ Germany) celebrated the first overall victory for the team of ROWE-Racing. The trio took the chequered flag at the 34th DMV Grenzlandrennen race in their Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3 with an advance of 22.464 seconds ahead of Sabine Schmitz (Barweiler/ Germany), Niclas Kentenich (Neuss/ Germany) and Arno Klasen (Karlshausen/ Germany), driving a Porsche 911 GT3 R. The top three were completed by Dennis and Marc Busch (both from Bensheim/ Germany) in a Porsche 911 GT3 competing in class SP7 and celebrating their first place on the podium in the endurance racing championship. The race organised by the Rheydter Club für Motorsport and scheduled to run over four hours was first of all interrupted due to accidents before it was restarted and then finally stopped with the red flag after 162 minutes driving time. A 30 minutes summary of the race will be shown on channel Sport1 on 6th of August at 1 pm.
The red flag was shown even twice at this sixth of ten championship races in the current season. First, the race was stopped at 13:33hrs in lap ten. There was an accident at the section Tiergarten in which three cars were involved and the track at this high-speed passage was partly blocked. “We had to stop the race for safety reasons”, said Bernd Burkhard (Jülich/ Germany), Clerk of the Course. Two of the drivers involved suffered slight injuries whereas the third driver was not injured. The race was restarted at 15:00hrs before it was finally stopped 67 minutes later. The track was blocked again after an accident of six cars in the section Bergwerk. As the minimum distance of 160 minutes required to allocate full championship points was completed, full points will be awarded.
Pole position in the timed practice on the wet, 24.360 kilometres long combination of the Nürburgring short version and Nordschleife was gained by Chris Mamerow (Castrop-Rauxel/ Germany) and Armin Hahne (Wimbach/ Germany) in their Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3. The duo retired later in the race after a tyre damage as they had lost all chances to win the event. In the first part of the race, there were many changes in the lead, showing the Busch twins in the top after the first section. “After the restart, we were however no longer able to go the speed of our competitors and dropped back into third position”, informed Dennis Busch. So the way was clear for the ROWE team. “We are really happy with our first victory”, said Zehe. „We must of course admit that we benefited from the race interruption. I was not able to proceed to my stint as scheduled. As a privateer, I am also not able to achieve the same lap times as Alexander and Roland and the competition today was very strong. We would nevertheless also have been delighted with a place on the podium today.” The crew which finished in second place was reasonably happy. “Even though you cannot blame anyone for the stopping of the race, we are not at all pleased “, said Klasen. “We had been well on the way to catch up to the ROWE SLS and missed the first overall win for the Frikadelli team.”
With ROWE-Racing, another new team finished again on top of the podium at the sixth round of the season. So far, six different teams have won the six races – this is unique in the 35 years of history of the VLN endurance racing championship at the Nürburgring. This was the second victory of the season for a Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3.
Classified into fourth place were Peter Schmidt (Eltville/ Germany), Marcel Blumer (Switzerland) and Christopher Zöchling (Austria ) in the Porsche of Car Collection Motorsport. The fastest Porsche-Cup drivers Rodney Forbes (Australia) and Kai Riemer (Leipzig/ Germany) were followed by Michael Bäder (Mössingen/ Germany) and Tobias Hagenmeyer (Cologne) into position six. They were lucky, it could have been a lot worse, as the duo was involved in the accident which was the reason for the final red flag. In accordance with the Regulations, the classification of the race was based on the results after the penultimate lap.
Thomas Kappeler (Bad Saulgau/ Germany), Harald Hennes (Eschweiler/ Germany) and Thomas Gerling (Uchte/ Germany) in their BMW M3 were able to defend their lead in the Championship with their fourth class win in the category of VLN Specials up to 3000 cc cylinder capacity. Their advance ahead of second placed Wolfgang Weber (Vilshofen/ Germany), Norbert Bermes (Krefeld/ Germany) and Rickard Nilsson (Balduinstein/ Germany) in an Aston Martin Vantage entered by Mathol-Racing is 0.57 points. Into third position follows last year’s champions Mario Merten (Nürburg/ Germany) and Wolf Silvester (Nürnberg/ Germany) in the Bonk-BMW-Z4.
The second highlight of the season will now follow on 27th of August with the seventh championship race. The 6h ADAC Ruhr-Pokal-Rennen will cover a race distance of 6 hours.
Local politicians as guests of the organising Rheydter Club für Motorsport
Leading politicians of the FDP (Free Democratic Party) district chapter came to see the 34th RCM DMV Grenzlandrennen organised by the Rheydter Club für Motorsport as guests. In addition to their Chairman Andreas Terhaag and his two deputies Jörg Buer and Ute König, Cav Friedhelm Demandt, Managing Director of the Nürburgring GmbH between 1979 and 1985, also attended the meeting. “The contact to the RCM was arranged through Mr. Demandt”, explains Terhaag. “This is an exciting event for us, you can really smell motor sports here. The children in our small group are as well totally enthusiastic.” A highlight of their visit was a lap over the Nordschleife in a coach. Terhaag was kidding: “The bus driver was really doing his best. And who at all can say for himself that he has completed a lap at the Nürburgring with more than 300 HP?”
