An impressive number of cups were again awarded to the winners on 5 September on occasion of the Opel 6h ADAC Ruhr-Pokal Race. At this round of the VLN endurance racing championship Nürburgring, the total of 458 drivers took the start in 30 different classes. Some of those completed the six hour race with a special result. This applies for example for the crew of the Opel GTC OPC with start number 353. The achievement of all three drivers, Heinz-Otto and Jürgen Fritzsche as well as Hannu Luostarinen, had a particular significance in terms of statistics. They were, however, not the only ones who were able to celebrate an interim highlight in their individual lists of results.
One of those is Marc Hennerici. Together with Christian Menzel, he has so far competed in five VLN races and each time scored a class win in his Teichmann-Porsche 911 GT3 Cup. When he crossed the finish line at the Opel 6h ADAC Ruhr-Pokal Race in the lead of his class, and with an advance of more than two minutes ahead of the second-placed Cup-Porsche driven by Adam Osieka and Steve Jans, the 33 years old celebrated already his 20th class win in the VLN. This same number of class victories cut by half has been achieved by Fabian Wrabetz after his latest win in the TMG GT86 Cup. Together with his partner Arne Hoffmeister, he is so far unbeaten in the current season with his Toyota GT 86, he is second in the current VLN overall classification and took six of his ten victories in the year 2015 alone.
Dr. Werner Bauer and Michael Bohrer each celebrated their 25th class win respectively in the VLN. Together with the two Czech Milan Kodidek and Thomas Miniberger, Bauer won in class SP4 with his BMW 325i and Bohrer dominated class SP2T with his team mates Markus Schrick, Jürgen Schumann and Heiko Hammel in a Hyundai I30Turbo. For Norbert Bermes, this seventh VLN round was marked by the figure 50 in two respects at the same time. Together with Wolfgang Weber, Hendrik Still and Domenico, he drove the Aston Martin Vantage V8 GT4 to the 50th class victory for the manufacturer and to the 50th class win in his personal career.
When the car with start number 353 on the Opel Astra OPC Cup took the chequered flag as winner, Hannu Luostarinen celebrated his 35th, Jürgen Fritzsche his 65th and twin brother Heinz-Otto his 81st class win. Heinz-Otto Fritzsche is thus missing just one more victory to catch up with Ralf Schall, the leader in the all-time table.
The Opel 6h ADAC-Ruhr-Pokal Race also provided some premieres. For the first time in the history, a quartet of drivers was able to win the season highlight. It was furthermore the first VLN overall win in the careers of Hubert Haupt, Abdulaziz Al Faisal, Adam Christodoulou and Yelmer Buurmann each. They provided the success for the Mercedes-Benz SLS AMG GT3 of Black Falcon after 41 laps.
