Five celebrities which have marked the VLN Langstreckenmeisterschaft Nürburgring in the past years will start at the two rounds of the Volkswagen Scirocco R-Cup at the Nürburgring on 7th and 8th August.
Sabine Schmitz, Uwe Alzen, Altfrid Heger, Olaf Manthey and Hans-Joachim Stuck have all together scored 41 victories in the most popular endurance racing series of Europe. The legends of the “Green Hell” will now take up the challenge at the Nürburgring short connection and compete against the 20 regular drivers of this innovative make cup in which the race cars are powered by bio natural gas and thus provide a reduction on CO2 emission by 80 percent.
“The legends of the Nordschleife perfectly fit with this guest round of the Scirocco R-Cup at the Eifel circuit”, explains Volkswagen Motor Sport Director Kris Nissen. “These five drivers have definitely gone down in the history of the Nürburgring. As the Scirocco-Cup will for the first team in the current season have two races at one and the same weekend, the fans will have the opportunity to see them in racing action on Saturday as well as on Sunday.”
With Sabine Schmitz this will be the first time ever for a lady driver to compete in the classification of legends of the Scirocco R-Cup. The 41 years old race driver, who completed her first laps around the Nordschleife together with her mother, is the only woman who has ever won the overall classification of the endurance racing championship. She succeeded in 1998 together with Johannes Scheid.
Uwe Alzen and Olaf Manthey have been quite successful at the 24h races in the previous years. Former DTM driver Alzen won the race in May of the current season. In 2005, he scored a lap record at the Nordschleife in the legendary Porsche “Turbinchen” of his brother when he set a time of 8.09.499 minutes. Olaf Manthey, who can look back onto 28 victories in the VLN Langstreckenmeisterschaft Nürburgring won four times in a row from 2006 till 2009 as team manager.
Altfrid Heger has a special connection both to the Nürburgring and to Volkswagen. In 1980 the race driver from Essen competed in his first car race ever – in a Golf GTI at the legendary Nordschleife. In 1990 and in 2000 (together with Alzen), Heger won the 24 Hour Race in which he competed with a Volkswagen Scirocco in 2008 and in 2009. Last but not least: Motorsport legend Hans-Joachim Stuck won the first of the legendary one day races in 1970 and the former Formula 1 driver and sports car world champion scored the so far only victory of a Diesel car in 1998. The DTM champion of 1990 achieved his third win at the 24 Hour Race in 2004 and with the R8 LMS of Phoenix-Racing he gained the so far only VLN victory of an Audi in 2009.
