The ninth round of the VLN season turned out to be rather an extraordinary race weekend for Ring Racing. The team which is based in Boxberg near the Nürburgring had completed a great deal of work ahead of this penultimate race of the season and the team staff would not get bored at the event itself, either.
Many hours had been spent at Ring Racing into the Renault Clio of Jean-Jaques Meyer and Elöd Szarka who had had a bad accident at the last round. The car had to be completely rebuilt on the bodyshell, an intensive work over three weeks for the team of Ring Racing.
The Clio was presented in the pit lane in mint condition and in time for the race weekend, anticipating its participation. During the race, which was characterized by the adverse weather conditions in the Eifel region, Meyer and Szarka had to struggle hard with the constantly changing conditions. Although the Clio did not suffer any technical problems, start driver Elöd Szarka had to fight really hard during his stint which, however, was the same problem suffered by probably half of the VLN starters due to the partly torrential rain falls and showers of sleet. When the race was stopped before the scheduled race distance had elapsed, Meyer and Szarka were classified into position 16 of their class, just behind the brothers Baumann.
The Brötchen-Clio of Karl Brinker kept the Ring Racing team awake all night from Friday to Saturday. After the test laps on Friday, a part of the engine had to be resealed overnight in order to ensure in any case the reliability of the drive system. However, in the race a stuck throttle valve spoiled all the plans of Karl Brinker – a repair at this point of the race would not have been reasonable. But it was not only due to the Brötchen-Clio that the Ring Racer people were compelled to complete a night shift. The Renault Clio of Horst and Helmut Baumann suffered en engine failure in the Mercedes Arena during the Friday practice and had to be repaired until the early morning hours as Horst Baumann explains:
“The staff members of Ring Racing have been working on the car all night and almost didn’t get a wink of sleep. Thanks to this night-time work, the car was ready again in time for the start of the practice. I have to pay a really great compliment to the team!”
Apart from the weather disturbances in the Eifel region, the Baumann brothers had no problems at all during this ninth round of the season and finally finished in the midfield of class SP3.
Solo driver Pierre Moret finished behind. Regarding his condition and concentration after three and a half hours race time, he would have been able to just continue for another four hour race at the steering wheel of his Renault. But unfortunately, the Swiss race driver will have to wait for another two weeks until the VLN final will take place on 30th of October.
The Ring-Racing duo “Engel” and “Bengel”, too, almost did not want to get out off their Clio. Following the slogan that one must take up challenges, the two race drivers from Cologne were struggling their way through the race and, with a smile in their faces, finished a few positions behind the other drivers of the racing team from Boxberg.
