Last season, the Team Derscheid was not too fortunate in their racing activities and in fact had a lot of bad luck. Many accidents, which were not their fault, again and again threw the nice private team back. With the new BMW 325i, the “updated” BMW 318i and the experienced staff, the team now managed to score two victories right at the first race in the new season 2103.
After the 1.5 hours of practice before the first race of the Nürburgring endurance racing championship (VLN) last weekend, the team members of the Team Derscheid were so happy that one was beaming brighter than the other. Both cars had achieved pole position respectively in their class and were found so far in the front of the grid as never before. Whilst Michael Flehmer (Heiligenhaus/ Germany) had to struggle with a lot of accidents on the wet track during his first practice laps in the BMW 325i, Rolf Derscheid had a pretty clear track but was not impelled to try to achieve fastest lap under all circumstances. The team manager scored a lap time of 10:10 minutes which was fastest time in class V4 and finished first with the BMW in class V4 and 91st overall – amongst more than 200 cars, however!
The Derscheid juniors, too, who have meanwhile colleted a lot of experience in many races, were able to dominate their class. With a time of 10:52 minutes, Matthias Butz (Bergisch-Gladbach/ Germany) finished in the BMW 318is in first place in class V2 and in 153rd position overall. His team colleague Martin Hörter (Ransbach- Baumbach/ Germany) did not have one free lap in practice, was struggling with a dirty track and had to pass many accidents. He, too, was nevertheless happy with his time.
Michael Flehmer was the first to start the race which was scheduled to run over four hours in the BMW 325i. After the start, he was pushing very hard, and succeeded. He joined the Nordschleife unchallenged into first place in class V4 and managed to move ahead, leaving quite a gap to the other competitors in his class. He quickly joined a group of cars which was going approximately the same pace as he did and even though Flehmer had the weakest car, he was nevertheless able to keep up well. They thus shared the work as leading car in the group several times and provided each other some slipstream. As a consequence, they further increased the gap to the competitors behind. In lap nine, Flehmer came to the pits for refuelling. He then rejoined the race for another seven laps in which he was able to defend his first class position in s superior way. He changed to team manager Derscheid in lap 17 who was supposed to carry on the excellent job and to finish with a victory. He managed this task brilliantly and without any problem. With an advance of almost five minutes, the two race drivers celebrated a fantastic and well-deserved victory. The crew finished into 64th place overall!
The advance of the driver duo in the BMW 318is would certainly have been similar if the competitors had not eliminated themselves before the chequered flag came out. Matthias Butz and Martin Hörter completed 21 laps within the four hours race distance and dominated class V2 throughout the race in a superior way. Start driver Martin Hörter kept cool in the traffic, found his rhythm very quickly and completed constantly fast laps. He came to the pits for refuelling after the seventh lap and then continued for another four laps. Matthias Butz then took over the steering wheel of the BMW 318is and completed eight more laps before he crossed the finish line.
