A great number of trophies was again awarded on 3rd of October to the winners of the 55th ADAC Reinoldus-Langstreckenrennen. The total of 379 drivers took the start in about 30 different classes at the eighth round of the VLN endurance racing championship. For some of them, the four hour race finished with a special result. For Georg Weis for example, this eighth VLN race was a very special event when he started in the Wochenspiegel Porsche 911 GT3 RSR. It was the 100th VLN start for the 56 years old race driver who took the chequered flag together with Jochen Krumbach and Oliver Kainz in seventh overall position and as winners of class SPPro. So all of the three drivers finally had a good reason to celebrate: Weiss took the chequered flag at his 100th race, Krumbach scored his 50th and Kainz his 30th VLN class victory.
A special reason to celebrate had also Volker Strycek who is extremely popular at the Nordschleife. Together with Peter Hass and Hans-Olaf Beckmann, he was driving the cult vehicle par excellence, the Opel Manta, over the 24.358 kilometres long track in the Eifel. The Manta crossed the finish line after four hours as winner in class H2. So Strycek celebrated his 75th class win and caught up with Mario Merten who is shown in fifth place of the all-time table. And he was not the only one in the cockpit of the Manta who celebrated a jubilee at the end of the eighth VLN race: Hans-Olaf Beckmann scored his 45th class win at the legendary Nordschleife.
The Busch brothers had a true highlight in the VLN. In the extremely competitive field of the 55th Reinoldus-Langstreckenrennen, they gained the overall victory. It was on the very last metres only that the Audi R8 LMS ultra of Marc and Dennis Busch won against the strong competition. A huge success for the sole true private team in the field of the GT3 race cars which was at the same time the 15th class win for Dennis Busch. It was furthermore also a jubilee victory for the manufacturer from Ingolstadt, the 15th overall win of an Audi.
Like Dennis Busch, Hajo Müller and Carsten Erpenbach were also able to celebrate their 15th class win. Erpenbach won together with Ralf Wiesner in class VT2 with their Renault Mégane, Müller joined Dominik Thiemann and Jens Riemer in the BMW 3 series to win class V5. Their tenth class win scored Ernst Berg and Claudius Karch respectively. Berg was fastest in class SP2T together with Oliver Schumacher in a Peugeot RCZ, Karch won class V6 together with Ivan Jacoma in a Porsche Cayman S. Detlef Langels and Hans-Martin Gass gained the fifth class victory in their career. Langels won class SP5 in the BMW Z4 Coupé together with Markus Arndt, Gass took the victory together with Kristian Better with the BMW 1 series Coupé in class SP8T.
