Our VLN 10 race was the last in the 2014 series. It was considered a ‘small’ race with only 178 entries.
A big race has more than 220 cars. Oh My.
GAM S.W.A.T. team members (from left to right) Andres, Q, Lewis, Bruce & Kevin ahead of race start at ROWE Oil luxury suite.
The paddock was PACKED with transporters and equipment. I couldn’t believe the equipment people had. Imagine back to the days when there was both IMSA and Grand-Am, picture a paddock housing BOTH series. Mercedes AMG SLS, Lemans RSRs, Z4s, Lexus, Toyota, Renault, Ford, BMW, VW and Bentley – it was SUPER cool.
The 325 e90 BMW that we were driving was essentially a track day car. A stripped down street car with a cage, seat, shocks and wheels. Oh yeah, we had a tuner exhaust on it too. At 250hp though, we weren’t hiding any driver mistakes. You had to ROLL your speed in if you had any hope of carrying any out of a turn. The builder, Boes Motorsport had done a wonderful job with setup however. The 252 car might have been the best handling car I’ve ever driven. Super stable, slight understeer and excellent at telegraphing when you were at the limit. A real pleasure to drive. Actually, kind of a giggle to take jumps with such a heavy car…kinda felt like my high school days……sorry Dad 😉
The race effort is an attempt to obtain the certification required to compete in the 2015 24hr at the ring. ADAC rules say that you must have an FIA class A rated license to participate. We happen to fall on a rule change year as we enter 2015 making the hurdle a bit more of an effort. In the past, you could do the 24hr with a FIA class c license and 3 VLN races. Now you need to have a FIA class b license to do the 3 VLN races. Hopefully, given my Rolex, Conti & CCR resume, I’ll be waived on the 7 national race requirement and be awarded the FIA class b. The plan would be to return to The Ring in March for a 2nd VLN race before the June 24hr.
Race day was scary as hell. As we rolled out of the hotel for breakfast at 630am, we were met with a 45 degree drizzle. Nuts. Nurburg must be in the western most part of the time zone as the sun doesnt rise until 807am. This made the 830am qualifying effort SUPER tricky as we had to drive a wet, dark & unfamiliar course. We could do as many laps on the 2.8 mile GP circuit as we liked, however, the series rules say each driver must complete two timed laps of the 12.9 mile Nordeschliefe.
Q did 5-6 GP laps to get the tires & car warmed up before hitting the Ring. He was off into the time machine and emerged two laps later complete on his qualifying requirement. Now it was my turn.
I got into the car at 915am and was hopeful to get the same 5-6 GP laps in to understand the car’s behavior in the wet…and….frankly, to muster the moxie to tackle the wet ring. To my surprise, we had to pull behind pit wall for 15 min to install a window net. As I sat in the car watching the clock tick, I grew increaslingly stressed that I wasn’t going to be able to get my two timed laps in prior to the end of the session. At 928am – they rolled me back in front of pit wall, smacked the roof and said – go straight onto the Nordeschiefe! No GP laps for you. Ugh.
My humble laps concluded at 957am and I’ll forever be different for them. There is something just so wrong about jumping a 3800lb car at 140kph in the rain in a 40 foot wide chute. Choice, however, was not a luxury I had. See – I was the slow guy out there having only 4 laps EVER under my belt and with so few spots to pass – Flugplatz became the spot EVERYONE wanted to get by me at. This caught me on the high spot of the jump as the big cars whizzed past a full 40 mph faster. Twice I was drained of all color in my face given traction & armco matters….but an overall victory I felt given the 122 possibilities in that department!
It was P137 of 178 for Q & Ledoux to start the race in some of the worst weather that the series had seen in 2014. We felt so lucky.
Stay tuned – full race report on it’s way shortly. Here are some video highlights to view in the interim. You can see our black and red #252 BMW being passed by two Porsches in the 24-28 second part of the clip.
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