Snow in the Eifel region – The early winter caused the cancellation of the VLN season finale on 27th October 2012. The fans of Germany’s probably most popular motor sport series were nevertheless still having great fun with the Falken Drift Team around Remmo Niezen and Lars Verbraeken presenting a ‘rubber polka’ dance at the Mercedes Arena.
Black ice on the track, snow in the run-off areas – ‘safety first’ was the right decision of VLN Race Control and the race cars were kept in their pits. Some tires were nevertheless running hot: The virtually complete group of the Falken Drift Teams from England, Ireland and the Netherlands did their power pirouettes on Saturday on the start and finish straight as well as in the Mercedes Arena whilst the racing teams looked back onto the running of the current season over a cup of hot coffee. “It’s a pity that the final race had to be cancelled. But it is great that our drift colleagues had the chance to present their skills and thus put everyone into a splendid mood after all”, explained Sven Schabel, head of the Falken Motorsport team.
The show on the track was presented by seven of the most successful drift artists in Europe, amongst them Remmo Niezen, winner of this year’s drift challenge hosted during the Tuner Grand Prix by VLN partner Sport Auto, Lars Verbraeken, Michel Ditmarsch (all in BMW E30), Matt Carter (Nissan Sylvia S15), Paul Cheshire (Nissan Skyline G35), Alan Green (Nissan 180sx), Falken newcomer James Deane (Mazda RX7) and Marc Vissers (Nissan Skyline GT-R33). The spectacular event started on Saturday morning and finished in a thrilling highlight and the second show at about 1 o’clock in the early afternoon.
The presentation was not only very much appreciated by the fans but also by the drivers and the VLN organising committee so that they are now thinking about including the drift show as support event in the VLN series on a regular basis. After all, this drift show also attracted additional spectators to the Nürburgring so that the record in spectator numbers was only narrowly missed despite the bad weather and the cancellation of the race.
“All the fans were excited about the drift show which inspired just everyone. It would be fantastic if we could repeat the show on several occasions next year and we have already started the discussions with Falken Motorsports on this subject”, informs Dietmar Busch, VLN Managing Director.
“I can promise already today an even stronger presence on-site at the Nürburgring in 2013 – both regarding our VLN racing team and our drift show artists”, says Yukio Yoshida, Corporate Planing Director Falken Tyre Europe GmbH, finally.
Remmo Niezen actually just warmed up his engine at the Ring before he was really taking off some hours later in his home country. On Saturday evening at the Gymkhana Grid Finale in Santa Pod, England, he relegated his American colleague Vaughn Gittin Jr. into second place and Remmo is now the European Gymkhana Grid Champion.
