The VLN title holders of the previous year, the brothers Tim and Dirk Groneck, have put the initially leading team of Schläppi Race-Tec in their place in the class of the Cup 3 vehicles at the second VLN round this year. A four hours suspension of the race caused the 39th DMV 4 Hour Race at the Nordschleife to become a matter of patience.
In the timed practice already, Groneck Motorsport achieved pole position in the class-internal fight ahead of Mathias Schläppi and Holger Goedicke with a time of 9:48,783 minutes. The winners of the opening round had to stop their practice session after they went off in the area Adenauer Forst and due to the following repair did not make it in time for the starting grid. After the race, they received a one minute penalty as a consequence which would cost them dear.
After the start, Schläppi Race-Tec first of all went into the lead. After four laps already, the race was stopped. In an accident at the section Pflanzgarten, the Armco barriers were damaged over a distance of 80 metres. After a four hours repair, the race was finally restarted at 16:45hrs. The organiser was hence forced to shorten the remaining part of the race down to two hours.
After the restart, Schläppi and Goedicke continued to remain in the lead. The gap which they had achieved with regard to Tim and Dirk Groneck was however not sufficient to make up the one minute penalty for their start from the pit lane and Tim and Dirk Groneck finally became the winners. Mathias Schläppi and Holger Goedicke crossed the finish line with a total gap of 50 seconds to last year’s winners. The top three were completed by Max and Axel Friedhoff.
The only Clio R.S. IV Cup vehicle in the fieldwas driven by Karl Raab, along with Peter Utsch, who took over the steering wheel from Sebastian Lhomer. This time, they had a MINI in their class SP 2T to fight against but Utsch and Raab finally scored the class victory.
In class SP 3 not less than two Clio were classified first and second. Solo driver Robert Lommen won ahead of the winners of the opening round, Cassandra Reichle as well as Thomas and Tobias Overbeck.
Tim Groneck (Groneck Motorsport, Renault Clio R.S. III Cup): “The race was really very eventful. We benefited of course from the penalty imposed on Schläppi Race-Tec and could thus win the class. Had the situation been different, things would probably have turned out differently as well as Schläppi and Goedicke are upt to 10 km/h faster on the straights.”
