A true firework of emotions will mark the final of the season in the VLN endurance racing championship. The decision about the battle in the championship will be in the focus at the final round this weekend. Three teams still have the chance to win the attractive title in this most popular grassroots series in Europe. The range of race cars hereby starts from the small Renault Clio over the Audi TT RS 2.0 and up to the Porsche 911 GT3 – nothing could better reflect the variety prevailing in this endurance racing series. In addition to the decision about the title, a number of famous guest starters will attract a lot of attention. None other than the current Touring Car Champion Rob Huff (Great Britain) will make his debut in the ‘Green Hell’ on occasion of the 38th DMV Münsterlandpokal race. Lucas Ordonez from Spain, the new Pro-AM-Champion of the Blancpain Endurance Series, will also take part. Ordonez is furthermore the first winner in the GT Academy promoted by VLN sponsor Grand Turismo and will start in a high-performance Nissan GT-R. Entry all around the Nordschleife is free. Access to the paddocks and to the grandstands at the Grand Prix Circuit will be granted at the family-friendly price of 15 euro per person. Young persons up to 14 years have free entry. The start of the race will be given at 12 o’clock exactly and the positions on the grid will previously be decided in the timed practice from 08:30 to 10:00hrs. A programme with a drift show performed by the most spectacular sideway drives in the Mercedes Arena between the practice and the race will provide additional entertainment.
The leaders in the championship before the final are Dirk and Tim Groneck (both from Melle). The brothers competing in the Renault Clio Cup class have scored six class wins so far and are in first championship position with 69.73 points. The Wochenspiegel Team Manthey, with drivers Georg Weiss (Monschau/ Germany), Oliver Kainz (Kottenheim/ Germany) and Michael Jacobs (Roetgen-Rott/ Germany), have won their class of VLN Specials up to 4,000 cc cylinder capacity four times and finished three times in second position with their Porsche 911 GT3. Up to round eight of the series, the driver trio had still been within reach of the title but then scored a ninth place only in their class due to technical problems. Their gap to the leaders hence increased to 4.65 points. The crew of Elmar Deegener (Stelzenberg/ Germany) and Christoph Breuer (Nettersheim/ Germany) in the Audi TT RS 2.0 of the team Raeder-Motorsport unfortunately had to retire in the last race. Their gap behind the leaders is 8.98 points. Groneck and Groneck are the only ones who can still gain the title through their own efforts. If the Renault Clio drivers manage to score more points that their direct competitors, they will win the battle for the title. Should Weiss, Kainz and Jacobs win their class and thus gain about 9.6 points, a medium position in the cup class, which figures eleven cars on the average, will be sufficient for the championship leaders to also gain the title. Deegener and Breuer in contrast must win the class of VLN Specials up to 2,000 cc cylinder capacity with turbo and they must rely on the bad luck of their competitors. “The motto is ‘thrilling action to the end’”, says VLN Chairman Rolf Krimpmann. “We cannot think of a more exciting situation for all the many fans of the series ahead of this final round. Three teams with totally different car concepts are fighting for the title, that will be a dramatic final.”
The decision about the last race win of the season also promises to become very exciting. The winning teams so far in the 2013 season had been the BMW-Team Schubert and Marc VDS (BMW Z4 GT3, 1 win respectively), Phoenix Racing (Audi R8, 2 wins), Frikadelli-Racing (Porsche 911 GT3 R, 1 win), ROWE Racing (Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3, 1 win), Manthey-Racing (Porsche 911 GT3, 1 win) and recently Twinbusch (Audi R8 LMS Ultra, 1 win). The new DTM winner team of Phoenix Racing will start with two cars. In addition to the regular competitor in the Audi R8 LMS, driven by the brothers Ferdinand and Johannes Stuck (both from Munich) together with Frank Stippler (Bad Münstereifel/ Germany), another R8 has been entered by G-Drive Racing by Phoenix with drivers Marc Basseng (Neusalza Spremberg/ Germany), Laurens Vanthoor (Belgium) and Christian Mamerow (Waltrop/ Germany). The aforementioned Lucas Ordonez will compete fort he Nissan GT Academy Team RJN. The Spanish drivr will share steering wheel in the Nissan GTR with his experienced mentor Alex Buncombe (Great Britain). Three further graduates of the GT Academy, Wolfgang Reip (Belgium), Peter Pyzera (Gladbeck/ Germany) and Marc Schulzhitskiy (Russia), will start in the Porsche Cayman R of the team Pro Sport Performance GmbH. The current Touring Car World Champion Rob Huff will take part in the race together with Robb Holland (USA) and Charles Ng (China) in an Audi TT prepared by the Rotek-Teams and entered by the competitor of the MSC Adenau. “it didn’t take me long to confirm my participation in such an extraordinary car at this extraordinary track once I had received the offer”, says Huff. “It is always a privilege to have the chance of racing at the Nordschleife. Our target is to win our class and maybe we will even have a chance to win, provided that certain conditions play in our hands.” Considering such high ambitions of the World Champion, the fans of the endurance racing championship may well look forward to a fantastic race. Quite some of the long years experienced drivers at the Nordschleife will respond with the appropriate seriousness and themselves will look forward to compete against a true World Champion.
