The twins Dennis and Marc Busch (both from Bensheim/ Germany) succeeded in performing a masterpiece at the eighth round of the VLN endurance racing championship Nürburgring. After 4:04:29.043 hours race time and a covered distance of 28 laps, the two privateers in the Audi R8 LMS ultra left quite a number of well-known names and a lot of Nordschleife experts with many years of experience at the ‘Green Hell’ behind and celebrated their first overall win. Klaus Abbelen, Sabine Schmitz (both from Barweiler/ Germany), Patrick Huisman (Netherlands) and Henri Moser (Switzerland) in a Porsche 911 GT3 R entered by the MSC Adenau were delighted about their second place. The top three were completed by Uwe Alzen (Betzdorf/ Germany), Philipp Wlazik (Gladbeck/ Germany) and Niclas Kentenich (Neuss/ Germany) in the BMW Z4 GT3 of the team H&R-Spezialfedern. After all the candidates of the title experienced problems in the four hour race, the situation in the championship is coming to a head now before the final round of the season. Three teams still have the chance to gain the title. Dirk and Tim Groneck (both from Melle/ Germany) were able to defend their lead in their Renault Clio. A 30 minutes summary of the ROWE DMV 250 Miles Race will be shown in channel Sport 1 on 19 October 2013 at 17:30hrs.
„This is a great satisfaction after we missed the podium narrowly in the last race with our bad luck“, said Dennis Busch. “This first victory feels really great even if it will take a few days for us to realize what we have achieved today. The whole team and all of our partners have worked so hard for this success and we have now finally been able to reap the fruit of our efforts. We have been able to demonstrate that we are not only quick but that we are also in a position to win races.” In an exciting final section of the raced, the Busch twins managed to leave Andreas Simonsen (Sweden) and Marc Basseng (Neusalza-Spremberg/ Germany) behind. The Black Falcon driver duo suffered some tyre problems in the last lap so that Simonsen was not able to perform the final attack to the race leaders and dropped back into fourth place. The Frikadelli-Porsche and the Alzen-BMW benefited from the bad luck and crossed the finish line with a gap of only 1.487 seconds. “That was an eventful final part of the race”, said Schmitz who had a collision whilst lapping a car three laps before the finish, she was however able to continue the race. “A misunderstanding – that can happen”, admitted the Nordschleife experienced race driver. “Unfortunately we lost some important aerodynamic components during this incident. Our Porsche became very light at the front axle as a consequence and I had to take big risks to save our position till the finish.” Alzen was very happy to finally finish on a podium position after so many setbacks during the year. “A small feeling of success finally. Our BMW has been perfect from the very start of the season – unfortunately and for various reasons, we never managed to finish a race in a good position. We were pretty close to a win today, but we are anyhow happy with our position.”
The fastest Cup Porsche was driven by Christian Menzel (Kelberg/ Germany) and Wolfgang Kohler (Aldingen/ Germany) who finished in sixth place overall. With his third successive victory, this time together with Jürgen Nett (Mayen/ Germany), Mario Merten (Kelberg/ Germany) in the Opel Astra OPC Cup gained a lot of ground today to the leaders Jannik Olivo and Elmar Jurek (both from Berlin). After an accident in the timed practice and a swift repair by the TKS team, the driver duo finished in position 12 and thus at least limited the damage. The top two teams are separated by only three points before the final. The TMG GT86 Cup class was won by the team Leutheuser Racing&Events and drivers Jutta Beisiegel (Kaiserslautern/ Germany), Martin Tschornia (Bestwig/ Germany), Alexander and Wolfgang Kudrass (both from Lohmar/ Germany). Fastest in group H were Achim and Peter Heinrich (both from Simmerath/ Germany) with thier BMW M1. The class of VLN series production cars was dominated by a Porsche Cayman S of the team Mathol Racing and drivers Claudius Karch (Mannheim/ Germany) and Kai Riemer (Filderstadt/ Germany).
Dramatic racing action in the battle for the championship
Before the eighth and final round of the VLN series, the top three in the championship classification are also the three remaining candidates for the title now after the ROWE DMV 250 Miles Race. Groneck / Groneck who finished only second in the Clio Cup class are leading the championship before the final with a score of 69.73 points. The Wochenspiegel Team Manthey lost valuable points due to a broken drive shaft in the Porsche 911 GT3 RSR driven by Georg Weiss (Monschau/ Germany), Oliver Kainz (Kottenheim/ Germany) and Michael Jacobs (Roetgen-Rott/ Germany). The driver trio finished the class of VLN Specials up to 4,000 cc cylinder capacity into ninth place only and their gap in the championship classification is now 4.65 points. The Audi TT RS 2.0 with Elmar Deegener (Stelzenberg/ Germany) and Christoph Breuer (Nettersheim/ Germany) had to retire after 13 laps, also with a broken drive shaft. The Raeder duo is now 8.98 points behind the leaders.
The 38th DMV Münsterlandpokal race will conclude another fantastic season at the ‘Green Hell’ on 26 October 2013. The new champions will then be celebrated at the final round of the VLN endurance racing championship Nürburgring.
