The 36th DMV Münsterlandpokal race where the winners are traditionally awarded the traditional Westphalian ham concluded a fascinating and exciting motor sport season in the Green Hell at the Nürburgring. A number of fans and drivers in the VLN endurance racing championship now got together at the Limburg karting track to celebrate the finale of the season before the long winter break starts.
The total of 104 participants lined up to take part in the 4th VLN Fanpage karting event. Each team was made up of one professional driver from the VLN endurance racing championship and three fans. The composition of the 26 teams was decided by lottery. As usual in the VLN, the fans at the X-Kartcenter Limburg were able to enjoy a great variety on the grid, which included drivers regularly fighting in the series for overall victories in their powerful cars, such as Christer Jöns (Ingelheim/ Germany), Marco Seefried (Wemding/ Germany) or Lance David Arnold (Duisburg/ Germany), but also such “frequent participants” as Volker Strycek (Dehrn/ Germany). The successful drivers of series production cars, such as current VLN champion Tim Scheerbarth (Dormagen/ Germany) were of course not missing.
Similar to the VLN races, the strategy played an important factor in addition to the fitness required for a race distance of four hours. The Regulations, and in particular the newly introduced balance of weights, give room for the most different variants. Even though fun of course was prevailing for this event, both the VLN drivers and the fans were highly motivated for the race. Above all it was Christopher Mies (Heiligenhaus/ Germany) who already before the start of the event expressed his determination to fight: “After my pole position last year, I am really keen in winning this time. I will push very hard, you should get prepared for a tough fight!” said the driver from Heiligenhaus/ Germany. And the driver of Abt-Sportsline should be right after all. As last year, he dominated the VLN drivers qualifying and brought his team in pole position. The race, too, was dominated by him, together with the three fans Dennis Schüler, Robin Strycek and Andre Michel who were allocated to his team and they thus won the 4th VLN Fanpage Kartevent. Into second place finished the team of Martin Ragginger from Austria who this time was entered by Falken Motorsports. Together with the two Nordschleife fans, Stefan Zwank and Tim Kick as well as former actress in the series „Unter Uns“ Yvonne de Bark (Rösrath/ Germany), he finished second on the podium right at his first participation in this event. The podium was finally completed by current VLN vice-champion and winner of the Renault Sport Speed Trophy Stephan Epp who was supported by Christian Schmitz, Dominic Destree and Andreas Münch. The prize for the fastest lap was won by Robin Strycek who completed the 1,000m long indoor kart track faster than all the other participants. The second celebrity in addition to Yvonne de Bark to start the event, Christian Storm from Cologne (TV series “Lenßen und Partner”, Sat.1), also showed a reliable performance and finished into a good position the front mid-field in the team of Marco Seefried.
In addition to the racing action on the track, the spectators could of course also enjoy an entertainment programme. Amongst others, not less than three teams from the VLN endurance racing championship presented their successful race cars from the current season at the race track. In addition to Heico Motorsport displaying a Mercedes SLS AMG GT3 to the public, Dörr Motorsport joined the exhibition with their BMW Z4 Coupé and the Green Mamba Racing Team with their Ginetta G50 GT4. Furthermore, the fans could enjoy some non-cash prizes made available by the partners of the event and the live commentaries of Christopher Mies and Christian Frankenhout from the Netherlands during a VLN onboard lap.
“This year again, we were able to see a lot of bright faces at the karting track which proves that the event was very well received in 2011 again. It was great fun for everybody and one or another will definitely still feel the race in their bones during the next few days. At this occasion, we would like to thank our event partners once again very much: ROWE, KW Automotive, Racewerk and Maxicard, the 104 participants, our commentator Wolfgang Drabiniok, as well as the X-Kartcenter Limburg, an event of this format would not have been possible without their support”, said the organising team of the karting event.
