A great number of favourites had to retire early in the BMW M235i Racing Cup at the ninth round of the VLN endurance championship. 19 cars started at the Nordschleife on the 8th of October, four of them didn’t make it to the finish. Amongst those were the top two in the Cup classification. An opportunity which Heiko Eichenberg in the BMW of the Team Securtal Sorg Rennsport used mercilessly. The solo drivers scored another victory after his top result at the eighth VLN race and has thus reduced his gap to the second place in the Cup classification down to four points.
At the beginning of the race, Eichenberg was however first of all put at a disadvantage. The top two, the designated VLN Champions Alexander Mies and Michael Schrey in the Bonk Motorsport-BMW and the second overall, Thomas Jäger and Rudi Adams in the Eifelblitz of Scheid-Honert Motorsport, moved away. When it started to slightly rain again at the Nordschleife after one and a half hours, Eichenberg even went off into the grass at the section of Brünnchen and had to let the Pixum Team Adreanlin-BMW with drivers Uwe Ebertz, Norbert Fischer and Christian Konnerth, holding fourth place overall, pass.
Little later, the race was over for the leaders Schrey/Mies due to a damaged drive shaft. “We have so far escaped all technical problems throughout the complete season. It is a pity that now, we were also caught but we all know that motorsport can be quite tough some times”, Schrey said. Eichenberg meanwhile coped better and better with the difficult conditions. He first of all passed Ebertz/Fischer/Konnert and went into second place before he applied some pressure onto the new leaders in the Eifelblitz, reducing the gap onto less than three seconds. Almost one hour before the race end, Jäger then had an accident at the exit of the Mercedes-Arena and thus cleared the way for the solo driver in the Cup5 class. The latter did not make any mistake and moved away from his rivals. Eichenberg crossed the finish line as winner with a clear advantage ahead of Ebertz/Fischer/Konnerth (1:23,559 minutes) and the FK Performance-Trio Stefan Vancampenhoudt, Yannik Mettler and Thorsten Wolter (3:38,640 minutes).
With a score of 198 points, Schrey/Mies now have an uncatchable advance in the Cup5 classification before the final. Into second place follow Jäger/Adems with 126 points – after the new success, Eichenberg has collected the total of 122 points.
