The 38th edition of the classic 24 hour race in the Eifel provided top excitement and tough racing. Some 220,000 spectators trekked to the Eifel to see racing at its best, an overall win for BMW and a total of eight class wins for race teams that were running ATS wheels.
It is the annual highlight, not only in the Eifel, but in international motor racing in general: the 24-hour race at the legendary Nordschleife, This year, 220,000 spectators came to the demanding and breath-taking Nürburgring, while almost 200 teams took on the tough challenge twice around the clock, a real test for man and machine. Among the competitors was the team of Harald Jacksties and Frank Lorenzo with the experience from numerous races on the Nordschleife, racing a Honda S2000 entered by the Mäder team. To complete the team, the experienced duo also took Ralf Schmid and Friedhelm Mihm on board. The ATS-Mäder Honda S2000 raced in the strongly contested SP3 category.
For Ralf Schmid, president of the board of the UNIWHEELS group, it was a personal interest to take on the duty of participating in the 24-hour race. “For ATS, the world’s toughest endurance race is an excellent platform to demonstrate the high quality of our products. I really wanted to experience this requirements to the equipment and to the drivers myself”, said a much happy Ralf Schmid.
Eventually, there was plenty of reason to be happy. After all, ATS could celebrate eight class victories at the end of the fascinating 24-hour race. Among them was the success in the SP3 class for cars with atmospheric engines of up to two litres. Because eventually, the ATS Mäder Honda S2000, was the first car to take the chequered flag in the strongly contested class. “The car is top for such events. Once again, Mäder Motorsport has prepared the car absolutely perfectly”, said Frank Lorenzo and added: “For us, it was an absolutely first-class race. Our car didn’t have one scratch. However, we have made it through without any technical problems. Just fuelling up, changing tyres and driving.” The key to success was not only in the technically perfect preparation, but also the consistent performance of the well-balanced and, of course, really fast driver line-up.
“Indeed, the race was relatively trouble-free. Still, it was tough, because our rivals put us under plenty of pressure. We were under pressure all the time, but especially during the night, we were able to build up a decent margin”, says Harald Jacksties, who was able to celebrate the fourth class win of his career in this year’s 24-hour race. And with a margin of five laps, this win was quite comfortable at that.
In spite of many retirements in one of the fastest and toughest races ever in the Eifel, ATS was able to celebrate many other achievements. “Next to our own success, we are, of course, very happy that seven other teams were also on the top step of the podium for ATS”, said Harald Jacksties, head of marketing of the UNIWHEELS group. Among them was the Volkswagen Motorsport works team that had entered three Scirocco GT24-CNG into the race, all of them with more than 300 hp and powered with bio natural gas. The fastest of the race Sciroccos was even able to compete among the significantly more powerful race cars and eventually ended up 16th overall in the 24-hour race. The Raeder Motorsport Audi TTS finished 15th overall, also with ATS competition wheels.
As a result, Ralf Schmid could be quite happy with the achievements of the ATS teams. “In this tough race, we have been able to demonstrate the quality of our products in an excellent way and we have given very good support to the teams that were using our competition wheels.” And the support provided by ATS was even more than the regular technical support. They also had the opportunity to use a physiotherapist. In such a demanding race, such a service is equally important as the technical preparation.
