2014 VLN Championship season review
In a motorsport world it is rare to see mostly amateur championship interesting and exciting as a professional one, but German VLN Series is just that. If you are not familiar with this championship here is a short introduction.
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The VLN stands for “Veranstaltergemeinschaft Langstreckenpokal Nürburgring“ or Association of Nurburgring Endurance Cup Organisers. This is organisation of German amateur and professional motorsport clubs of which each hosts one event of a ten race series held on the Nurburgring world famous Nordschleife circuit. This championship was formed in 1977 but grew steadily in popularity and audience. Main reason is for that are very interesting races with lots of vehicles of different specifications racing on one of the worlds best race track.
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VLN races are very popular with drivers, too and there are often hundreds of cars on the grid divided as many as 30 different classes. There are four main divisions. There are Series Cars which are low cost production vehicles with near stock specifications which compete in six gasoline and one diesel class. The Specials are proper race cars with experienced drivers ranging from SP1 to GT3 specifications by FIA standards. The Cup division is made from one make cars with same specifications and the H division is made from vehicles older then 1996. This means that audience can enjoy various race cars at the same race, from small hothatch model to the full race spec GT3 monsters as Mercedes SLS AMG GT3 and similar cars.
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The 2014 season started on 21th of March with test days and the first race held on 29th of March. The season ended on 22nd of November. In Series Cars division which runs a production cars, German driver Rolf Derscheid was the best driving his BMW Series 3.
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In the Specials division, Frikadelli Racing Team running Porsche 911 GT3 R and with experienced Nurburgring lady driver Sabine Schmitz was best.
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There are three interesting cup classes in 2014 season, one was a BMW M235i Racing Cup, second was an Opel Astra OPC Cup and the third was TMG GT86 Cup in which Toyota GT86 is raced and cup is sponsored by Toyota Motorsport Germany. Interestingly, Toyota Gmbh awarded Arne Hoffmeister and Fabian Wrabetz, young German drivers, with substantial cash reward after winning the TMG GT86 Cup in 2014.
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Even though VLN Championship is not so popular outside Germany, combination of different classes, various race cars and selection of skilled drivers it is one of the best amateur-professional series in the world. So be sure to keep an eye on “ Veranstaltergemeinschaft Langstreckenpokal Nürburgring“ because not only you will find great racing action and diversity of cars and teams, you will also find some future race stars starting from amateur level. Since VLN is open to amateurs, maybe you should test your racing skills as well. Just be careful, racing is very addictive!
