The fifth race of the BFGoodrich Langstreckenmeisterschaft was characterized by the weather: The delay of the practice due to fog and the stopping of the race due to rain really put the nerves of the competitors to the test. Rank Motorsport from Waldbröhl kept cool and was recompensed with a cup.
The Motorsportteam Rank from Waldbröhl had only two weeks time to repair the damages experienced in their Opel Corsa during the last race. As if it had never been involved in a race accident, the small Opel was waiting at the pits to take the start to the fifth race of the season. But they had to wait for almost two hours until the practice session was started due to the heavy fog around the Grand Prix Circuit: Visibility was down to clearly below 50 metres and it was much too dangerous to start the session. So the team around team manager Rudi Rank, too, had to wait until almost 09.30 a.m. when Race Control thought it was safe to start the official practice.
Stefan Rank (Waldbröhl) was the first driver of the team trying to set a fast time but he returned to the pits after only one lap. The reason was that first of all, there were still many extremely wet sections at the Nürburgring Nordschleife which slowed Rank junior down a lot and secondly, he realized some hard bumps in the steering when braking. Damaged brake discs was the result of the quick failure analysis carried out by the mechanics. The discs were replaced within a few minutes and Jürgen Meyer (Westerkappeln) was able to start his part of the practice. Two laps over the Grand Prix Circuit and two laps over the Nordschleife were enough to get the brakes onto temperature and to achieve ninth of the 13 grid position to be allocated in class V2.
Despite the lateness in the morning, Race Control kept to the original schedule and the race was started at 12:20 with a delay of only 20 minutes. As usual, Stefan Rank drove the first stint with a scheduled duration of two hours. This time, Rank did not back off, he was fighting toughly. He was able to move ahead of a lot of cars in the traffic after the start and gained positions in his class. It was, however, not so easy afterwards to move up to the other competitors of his class. Although he succeeded in closing up lap by lap, he was never really able to get within reach of beating them. After having completed eleven laps, the Opel Corsa was directed to the pits where Jürgen Meyer was waiting to take over the steering wheel and the mechanics to service the car.
Only half of the number of laps for Meyer
The pit stop and the change of driver were completed very quickly. The mechanics only had to check the liquid levels, to refuel the car and to fasten the seat belts for Jürgen Meyer. Due to the unproblematic handling of the Opel Corsa, there was no need to change tyres and Meyer could rejoin the race on used and well-tempered slicks. He completed his laps without any problems and continued with the same good performance as showed Stefan Rank. The Corsa was meanwhile shown into fifth class position. There was no chance for Rank Motorsport to move further ahead at this race as due to thunderstorms coming up and extremely heavy rain Race Control decided to stop the race some minutes before 4 p.m. The adverse weather had already caused a lot of partly heavy accidents. To avoid further incidents, Race Control decided to show the red flag. This was the signal for Jürgen Meyer to bring the Corsa into the Parc Fermé after having completed only six laps. The racing team from Waldbröhl had more than achieved its objective this Saturday: The objective had been to cross the finish line without an accident and amongst the first half of the competitors in class V2 – so to finish amongst the first 40 percent was a result with which team manager Rudi Rank was more than happy.
