Clear the ring for the 37th DMV Grenzlandrennen: The sixth round of the VLN endurance racing championship Nürburgring will provide a perfect holiday weekend for everybody, young and old, on 2nd of August. In summer temperatures and due to holiday time in the whole country, the motto is ‘Let’s go to the Eifel for the VLN’. A colourful grid at the race over four hours will present exciting motorsport action at the most beautiful and most demanding race track of the world. The experience endurance racing is free of charge all around the Nordschleife. Access to the open grandstands at the Grand Prix Circuit including a visit in the paddocks and to the starting grid will be granted at the family-friendly price of 15 euro per person. Young people under the age of 14 have free entry. Tickets will be available at the box-offices on-site. More information around the most popular grassroots series in Europe is available in the internet on www.nuerburgring-langstrecken-serie.de.
A fascinating fight about the race win will again go on in the leading group. The popular GT3 race cars of ROWE Racing, Falken Motorsports, Phoenix Racing, Dörr Motorsport and the Haribo Racing Team will return to the Nordschleife after they have missed one race, the fifth VLN round took place only two weeks after the exhausting 24h Race at the Nürburgring. And Michael Naundorf, ROWE Racing team manager, gets to the point: “The third place at the Nürburgring 24h Race gives us a lot of drive for the challenges to come. We have been quite successful in the VLN, too, so far during the year even though we are still missing a victory. We intend to change this in the second half of the season.” The AMG gullwing race car of the team will be driven by Michael Zehe (Flörsheim-Dalsheim/ Germany) and Jan Seyffarth (Querfurt-Leimbach/ Germany), and they have good chances to achieve a top result without underestimating their competitors. The two sports car experts Martin Ragginger (Austria) and Alexandre Imperatori (China) will share the cockpit in the Porsche 911 GT3 R of the team Falken. Phoenix Racing will rely on the performance of their drivers Marc Basseng (Rosenbach/ Germany), Frank Stippler (Bad Münstereifel/ Germany) Roman Rusinov from Russia, all of the three also very experienced at the Nordschleife. With Nicky Catsburg, Dörr Motorsport has contracted a new driver to join the team in the spectacular McLaren MP4 12C GT3. The driver from the Netherlands has already scored a win this year in the current long-distance season when he celebrated the first victory of the year for BMW together with Dirk Adorf (Hennef/ Germany). For the sixth round, Catsburg will now get a view beyond as he joins the two regular drivers in the Dörr team, Kevin Estre (Austria) and Arno Klasen (Karlshausen/ Germany) for the next race. Strong as a bear, literally speaking, will be the driver duo Jörg Bergmeister (Langenfeld/ Germany) and Mike Stursberg (Wermelskirchen/ Germany) in the Haribo-Porsche.
Bert Flossbach (Kölncologne) and Andreas Weiland (Kronberg/ Germany) will have some prominent support in their Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3. The driver trio will be completed by Jeroen Bleekemolen from the Netherlands, a true 24h Nürburgring winner. The SLS AMG GT3 of the team Hofor Racing will make its debut at the Nordschleife. The team from Switzerland has been competing in the VLN family since years but the fans of the series know them much more from competing in two BMW M3 in class SP6 (VLN Specials up to 3,500 cc cylinder capacity). And the Gernzlandrennen will be of great significance for the Swiss as they have celebrated their first class win at exactly this race back in 2012. So the timing to move forwards into the GT3 category with regular drivers Roland Eggimann (Switzerland) and Kenneth Heyer (Wegberg/ Germany) – the son of triple winner of the German Racing Championship Hans Heyer – could not be better.
Multi-cultural: Participants from all over the world will gather at the Nordschleife
The Nürburgring Nordschleife enjoys a high reputation internationally. There is no other race track on the world that has a similar power of attraction for all race drivers. Race drivers from the Baltic states, from Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Great Britain, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Austria, Russia, Sweden and Switzerland have been regular members of the VLN family since a long time. But there are also drivers who are prepared to take long journeys to come to the Nürburgring and compete in the endurance racing championship at the ‘Green Hell’. A prime example are the three American drivers John Shoffner, Janine Hill and Anthony Ashley who will participate in their fifth race in a Porsche Cayman S entered by Frikadelli-Racing. The results of the Nürburgring rookies, too, are quite impressive as they have achieved a seventh position from amongst the 15 starters in their highly competitive class.
