Over six hours race time, they were completing lap by lap, dedicating their performance to the Opel logo with the Blitz, and provided an exciting battle about the race win at the Opel 6h ADAC Ruhr-Pokal Race. The seventh round of the Opel OPC Cup offered the spectators around the famous Nordschleife top-class motorsport action Those competitors who drove the make with the Blitz logo on their bonnets were of course particularly motivated at this seventh race of the VLN endurance racing championship. Twelve teams started the adventure ‚Green Hell‘ in their 320 HP strong GTC OPC, trying to leave their competitors in the highly competitive Cup behind.
It was finally again the experienced drivers Heinz-Otto and Jürgen Fritzsche together with their team mate Hannu Luostarinen who were the winners in the end of this longest race in the VLN season. This was the first time in the current year that a team succeeded in gaining two races in a row in this popular one-make cup. The driver trio of the team Ti-Tarvike Racing could hereby not even be slowed down due to the technical problems which they experienced early in the race. They won the race after 37 laps and extended their lead in the Cup classification. Heinz-Otto Fritzsche: „It was really great fun. We are absolutely happy with our win – a fantastic feeling.“
However, the race started anything else than perfect for the Fritzsche brothers and Luostarinen. The twins and their colleague from Finland took the start from pole position and encountered a problem right in the first hour when they lost fourth gear. But due to their great experience, they simply stayed calm and relaxed. „Well, we knew it won’t go too bad. We had to run the engine at higher speeds, being aware of course that we would thus also have a higher fuel consumption,“ said Heinz-Otto Fritzsche. „We simply advanced our fuel stop by one lap.“ Neither did they get upset considering the difficult weather conditions in the first part of the race. „Ok, that was a little tricky. But in a six hour race, you always have enough time to equalise smaller mistakes“, said Fritzsche. The Cup Opel with start number 353 moved more and more away from the rivals lap by lap and finally celebrated a safe victory – they had finally gained an advance of more than one lap.
Willy Hüppi and Alexander Schula had no other chance than to ungrudgingly acknowledge the fantastic performance of the winning driver trio. They were originally delighted about their second place before Race Control decided to exclude them. Due to a mistake in their strategy, the team had lost their second position. The crew with start number 339 had miscalculated their fuel consumption so that they had to come to the pits for refuelling in the last race lap. This was however not allowed as the chequered flag had already been out at that moment. So they were not classified as finishers in the race and their second place had gone.
So Jari Nuoramo, Juha Hannonen and Daniel Bohr moved up in second place: „We would of course have prefered to gain that place in the race itself, but that’s motorsport – a breach of the regulations is a breach.“ Start driver Hannonen was struggling heavily with the conditions in the first part of the race. He started with hand-cut slick tyres to be on the safe side, accepting that he would lose some second rather than risking not to come to the finish. However, when the track then was completely dry, they had a very hard job to do with their GTC OPC. „We had to push like hell and moved up into third place and finally even into second. A perfect weekend for us“, was the summary of Bohr.
The third place gained by Marcel Hartl, Roger Vögli, Robert Schröder and Michael Brüggenkamp was a little miracle for them. They had quite a bad accident in the practice and managed in the very last minute to repair their car with start number 344 in time to start the race. The driver quarted nevertheless had to take the start from the last grid position. „This is unbelievable“, said Brüggenkamp at the finish when he still could not believe it. „Each one in the whole team gave everything and was rewarded for the efforts. We are extremely proud on this achievement.“ It was extremely difficult for the four drivers who were competing for the Team Lubner Motorsport in particular after the start. From the very end, they had to make their way through a true wall of spray. Brüggenkamp: „It was a super fight, an exciting battle and a fantastic race. We are extremely happy that we succeeded so brilliantly.“
After the seventh VLN race, the Fritzsche twins and Luostarinen are the clear leaders in the Opel OPC Cup with 157 points. With their victory at the 6h Race, they have even extended their advance so that they would be able to miss one round without losing their first place, considering that 30 points are awarded for a class win. It is however more than unlikely that this will happen. Heinz-Otto Fritzsche is finally missing only one class win to equalize with the leader in the all-time ranking, Ralf Schall (82 class wins). Heinz-Otto Fritzsche: „We are ready for anything.“ Furthermore, the battle about the next places in the overall classification of the Opel OPC Cup will definitley be fascinating. The fifth-placed Hartl, Vögli, Schröder and Brüggenkamp and the second-placed are separated by only 22 points.
