Reports

Kumpen and Longin increase their championship lead

© Planetlemans - Gerlach Delissen

On a dry and a little sunny Thursday afternoon, Anthony Kumpen and Bert Longin won the Belcar Midsummer Race, at the Zolder Circuit in Belgium. After a spectaculair start of the race, they settled in their position, finishing first, with GRI’s Mosler in second position and the Aston Martin, coming in third. Fourth position goes to the #56 GPR Racing Porsche 997GT3 and finally the AD Sport Viper in fifth position.

© Planetlemans - Gerlach Delissen

As the lights turn green for the fourth round of the Belcar Championship, polesitter Ritskes, with his Lamborghini heads of during a clean start. After only one round, the PK Corvette takes over the second position and starts a battle for first position. Although the Corvette has the speed, it just isn’t able to get passed the Gallardo. Due to this fight, Kumpen was forced into a small mistake and has to start his battle all over again.

After just only 10 laps Kumpen has hooked up behind Ritskes again and starts to see where he can overtake. At the beginning of lap 11, into the first left curve, the Lambo goes wide, with his right side into the gravel and the car spins, across the track, backwards into the railing.

© Planetlemans - Gerlach Delissen

Due to this crash Kumpen inherits the racelead. In second position is the Mosler #24 of Radermecker en Lemeret and the #56 GPR Racing Porsche in third position. Just only one lap after Ritskes crashes, the back of the G&A BMW Z4 Coupe gets into fire, on the start-finish straight. Niels Lagrange can get out of the car in time, but unfortunately it takes a long time for the marshals to stop the fire, which makes it nescesarry to pull in the safetycar.

© Planetlemans - Gerlach Delissen

It takes a few laps for the marshals to clear the straight and clean up al the dust of the fire extinguishers. Just three rounds for the race is back on again, the field reorders behind the safetycar, with the PK Corvette in 1^st position. After the pacecar leaves the track, Kumpen is on a role. The GRI Mosler has trouble keeping up the Corvette’s pace and doesn’t have any chance to get anywhere close to overtake.

Even after the pitsstops where PK even wins 15 seconds upon the number 24 car, the Corvette is still on top again and giving it a last go until the chequered flag.

© Planetlemans - Gerlach Delissen

In the Class 2 it’s was the 4^th winning in a row for the NGT team. In second position it is the #150 Porsche of First Motorsport and the GS Motorsport Porsche 996GT3 coming in third. After this victory, the NGT team has a tremendous lead in the championship. "we could even skip one race, and stil be on top" says Marc Neyens.
The surprise in the middle part of the race was the Class 3 car of team Belgium Racing. Their Ultima GTR was leader in Class3 for quite a while and even in 4^th position overall. But unfortunatelly, the Ultima doesn’t make it to the finish. Therefor the win in Class 3 goes to the Russell Racing Porsche 997, 2^nd is the CEO Racing Porsche 996, with Lammertink Racing filling up the podium in third.

Now, most of the Belcar teams go into holliday, as their next appearance will be during the 24 hours of Zolder on 8^th and 9^th of september.

gerlach@planetlemans.com