The Gmaxx Racing drivers Ed Nicelife and Thomas Koll were able to finish on the podium in class SP8 at the second round of the VLN Langstreckenmeisterschaft Nürburgring. They were, however, not happy as the gremlins have crept into the software of the control unit.
The Gmaxx Cars crew had arrived at the Nürburgring with a new V8 engine fitted in the Corvette GTR and also with a big portion of expectations. A better torque and an increase in power were in particular expected from the new heart of the US racer as the old engine had already been used during a complete season.
Yet, instead of satisfaction after the practice session, there were a lot of questions in the faces of the Corvette team members at the pits. A lap time of 9:12.125 minutes and overall position 54 was not what they had expected from the qualifying with the new V8 as Thomas Koll informed.
“We have fitted a new engine into the Corvette for this race and in particular for the 24h race but from the very first lap we didn’t have the power which was expected. It feels as if the car is running in the emergency programme. This is a problem which we will not be able to solve before the race.”
Ed Nicelife tried to make the best of the “electronically slowed down” Corvette in the first race laps. But after a few laps already, the US racing car came to the pits. A procedure which had to be repeated several times during the race.
It was almost touching how the mechanics worked in trying to identify the problem. They had written off this second race of the season since long and declared it a test as confirmed Ed Nicelife: “It looks as if there is a problem in the engine control unit. We cannot do anything here at the race track. The only thing which we can do is to delete the failure memory again and again in the pits so that at least a few reasonably fast lap times are possible. We can only solve the problem after the race as it is a software failure.”
Despite the adverse conditions, the Gmaxx Cars Corvette GTR finished into a respectable third position in their class. The software problem shall be solved in Kall/Germany until the next VLN race so that the Corvette will be able to develop its full power again in two weeks time.
