The finale in the VLN endurance racing championship at the Nürburgring has started. The next event on the calendar is the 35th DMV 250-Meilen-Rennen, the ninth of the ten championship rounds in the season 2011. And the battle about the championship title is getting closer and closer. Even though the championship table currently shows a different order, four teams are standing in the limelight to probably figure out the title amongst themselves, as only eight results out of the ten possible results will be taken into consideration for the final classification. All of them have achieved six top results in very strong classes and thus gained many points. All of them have nevertheless also already scored two weak results so that they are not yet shown in the top group of the classification after eight races so far.
Totally different in contrast are the layouts of the cars which come into consideration for the 2011 title. Jannik Olivo and Elmar Jurek (both from Berlin) compete in the series with a Renault Clio and in the Renault Clio Cup class. The front-wheel driven cars is prepared in accordance with the regulations for VLN Specials up to 2000 cc cylinder capacity. The Volkswagen Scirocco driven by Maik Rosenberg (Attendorn/ Germany), too, has a front-wheel drive. The car has a turbo engine, also with a cylinder capacity if 2000 cc. Their strong competitors rely onto BMW. Markus Schmickler (Bad Neuenhr-Ahrweiler/ Germany) and Lars Heisel (Bielefeld/ Germany) participate with a close-to-production BMW 325 and Carsten Knechtges (Mayen/ Germany), Manuel Metzger (Rickenbach-Hütten/ Germany) and Tim Scheerbarth (Dormagen/ Germany) share a BMW Z4. The situation is as follows: two thoroughbred front-wheel driven cars against two cars close-to-production and with rear-wheel drive, two competition coupés against one car coming from the compact category and one saloon car – one turbo engine against three normally aspirated engines or simply BMW against Renault and Volkswagen.
The current situation in the championship lead clearly reflects the diversity in the endurance racing championship. A great variety is provided by the race cars of not less than 29 different car manufacturers which have so far been at the starts in the season.
So everybody will be able to find his favourite when the start signal will be given at 12 o’clock exactly on the 15th of October and the huge field of the series will fight for places in the ‘Green Hell’ for four hours.
