The last third of the VLN endurance racing championship season at the Nürburgring has started. There are still three races on the calendar before the new champion may be celebrated. The eighth round of the season is the 43rd ADAC Barbarossapreis organised by the club MSC Sinzig. More than 170 cars will take the start on Saturday, 24th of September, at 12 o’clock exactly to compete over the distance of four hours on the 24.360 kilometres long circuit which is a combination of the Nürburgring short track and the Nordschleife. The start positions will be determined on basis of the timed practice between 08:45 and 10:15hrs. The grid will be made up of the popular and unique mixture of spectacular GT sports cars, close-to-production competition touring cars and the classical group H cars. Admission for spectators to the circuit all around the Nordschleife is free. Tickets including admission to the paddocks and to the open grandstands around the Grand Prix Circuit are available on-site at the cash boxes upon payment of the family-friendly price of 12 Euros. A 30 minutes summary of the race will be shown in channel Sport 1 on 30th September at 17:30hrs. The programme of supporting events will include a series for youngtimer cars of the years 1966 to 1981, the ‘Techno Challenge NK GT & Touring Cars’ from the Netherlands.
The seventh round of the year was dominated by Frank Biela (Monaco), Christian Hohenadel (Illingen/ Germany) and Michael Ammermüller (Pocking/ Germany) in their Audi TT RS entered by Raeder-Motorsport who benefited from the weather conditions. The new Audi customer race car will not be at the start of the Barbarossapreis race but it would anyhow only play a marginal role as the weather forecast says that the weekend will be dry. So the usual candidates will again be in the spotlight in the decision about the race win. With Christopher Haase (Kulmbach/ Germany) and Christopher Mies (Heiligenhaus/ Germany) as well as Marc Basseng (Leutenbach/ Germany) and Frank Stippler (Bad Münstereifel/ Germany), Phoenix-Racing has entered two top crews in an Audi R8 LMS respectively. Mercedes, too, is very well represented with two vehicles entered by ROWE-Racing, one gullwing race car of the team Black-Falcon and one car of Mamerow-Racing-SLS with drivers Chris Mamerow (Castrol-Rauxel/ Germany) and Armin Hahne (Wimbach/ Germany). Manthey Racing has even entered three Porsche 911 GT3 R and the very competitive crews made up of Mike Stursberg (Wermelskirchen/ Germany) and Richard Westbrook (Great Britain), Jochen Krumbach (Eschweiler/ Germany), Philipp Wlazik (Gladbeck/ Germany) and Marc Gindorf (Monaco) we all as Lucas Luhr (Switzerland) and Arno Klasen (Karlshausen/ Germany). Furthermore, two additional Porsche teams have the potential to finally score the first win for the GT3 Nine Eleven. Sabine Schmitz and Klaus Abbelen (both from Barweiler/ Germany) will compete for the club team MSC Adenau and the second Porsche entered by Pinta-Racing will for the first time be driven by Marco Seefried (Wemding/ Germany), together with Michael Illbruck (Unterföhring/ Germany). Not less than 14 cars in the Porsche-Cup class as well in the class of VLN Specials up to 4000 cc cylinder capacity must in addition be taken into consideration for a final place on the podium.
Fast extraordinary cars will add to the variety on the grid
One class at the 43rd ADAC Barbarossapreis race will provide a special contribution to the variety on the starting grid, the VLN specials with the huge cylinder capacity of up to 6250cc. This is the playground for super sports cars which will make the hearts of all the motorsport fans around the Nürburgring Nordschleife beat much faster. The Lexus ISF of Toyota Motorsport GmbH will be driven by Akira Iida (Japan) and Herwig Daenens (Belgium) and another ISF by Uwe Kleen (Boxberg/ Germany) and Klaus Völker (Haltern/ Germany). The two Japanese racers will have to compete against the Aston Martin V8 Vantage of the Aston Martin Test-Centre based at Meuspath/ Germany. Wolfgang Schubauer (Brilon/ Germany) and Jürgen Stumpf (Attendorn/ Germany) will share the cockpit in the British luxury sports car. The colours of the United States of America will be represented by Tobias Guttroff (Scheinfeld/ Germany) and Jens Richter (Wurzen/ Germany), driving a Chevrolet Corvette. The colourful mixture of nations will be completed by Jürgen and Peter Schumann (both from Sarrebruck/ Germany), starting at the ‘Green Hell’ in a Hyundai Genesis Coupé V6. The class of VLN specials up to 2000 cc cylinder capacity with turbo engines also figures a great variety of the most different car models. Audi A3, Audi TT S, Mitsubishi Lancer EVO X, Opel Astra GTC, Opel Astra OPC, Seat Leon Supercopa, Volkswagen Golf and Scirocco will fight about positions and points in this class. More than 16 cars will be at the start in class SP3T.
The programme includes rounds of the Dutch ‘Techno Challenge NK GT & Touring Cars’ over the distance of 25 minutes plus a lap at the short track of the Grand Prix Circuit each, one before (10:45hrs) and one after (16:35hrs) the race of the VLN endurance racing championship respectively.
