Historic Racing

Classic Endurance Racing – Nürburgring Report

© Planetlemans – Marcel ten Caat

The penultimate round of the 2008 Classic Endurance Racing series took place at the Nürburgring, supporting the ‘ADAC 1000KM Rennen’. 41 cars started the weekend, with several new additions in the field. Eventually 37 cars were seen in the race. One of the highlights was the Porsche 908 that was entered for Sascha Maassen.

After his win at Spa Jacques Nicolet in his Lola T298 was the man to beat. Jean-Marc Luco swapped his Porsche 936 for a Porsche 908/4 again while Michel Quiniou, finishing second at Spa also took his Lola T280 to Germany. In the free practice session it was indeed Nicolet who went quickest. The Frenchman lapped the track in 2:04.444, almost a second and a half quicker than John Sheldon in a Chevron B16 and 1.7 seconds quicker than Luco’s Porsche.

On Friday afternoon it was however Sandy Watson who, on his return to the series, set the fastest time in the first qualifying session. In his Chevron B19 the Scot lapped the 5.148km long circuit in 2:02.765, 1.273 seconds quicker than Nicolet. Luco and Sheldon set the third and fourth fastest time, over 2 seconds behind Watson. On Saturday morning most drivers improved their times. Unfortunately for Watson his improvement was not enough for pole position as Nicolet managed to set a 2:01.868. This meant the French driver would be on pole position, Watson’s fastest time of 2:02.474 was enough for second place on the grid. Pierre de Thoisy, who replaced Olivier Cazalieres in the #45 Chevron B36 ended the session in fourth place, behind Luco.

On Sunday afternoon the spectators saw a real race between the P2 cars from the word go. Unfortunately the Maassen driven Porsche 908 left the race early with mechanical problems, which troubled the car all weekend. Another early retirement, after only six laps, was the Porsche 908/4 of Luco. But the cars that did stay out of trouble made it a great race. Watson, Nicolet, Quiniou and De Thoisy stayed close to each other in the opening laps, but as the race went on Watson and Nicolet created a bigger gap to the rest of the field, with Watson ahead of Nicolet

While De Thoisy in his Chevron B36 started to lose more ground on the three cars ahead of him the lead, due to a second pit stop, Watson and Nicolet did not let go of each other. Towards the halfway point of the race it was still Watson in the lead, with Nicolet still within striking distance. After the teams had made a pit stop the yellow Lola was suddenly in front of the blue Chevron. At first Nicolet seemed to pull away from Watson, but towards the end the Scot closed the gap again and for some laps he looked destined to overtake the Frenchman coming into the NGK-chicane. With only two laps to go Nicolet nearly lost the car as he came out of the NGK-chicane when he came across one of the slower Corvettes, but he managed to regain control and stayed in front of Watson.

After just over an hour of racing and completing 29 laps it was Nicolet taking the chequered flag in first place, just seven tenths of a second ahead of Watson. Michel Quiniou crossed the line in third place, 34 seconds behind the winner. As the cars came to a halt in parc fermé Nicolet confirmed his car had been more difficult to drive in the final part of the race and that allowed Watson to get back. For the fans around the track that did not matter as they had seen a great race with the classic cars.

Next meeting: Silverstone. The Classic Endurance Racing series will support another classic event, this year being renamed the Autosport 1000KM of Silverstone. The provisional entry list has some rather interesting cars on it…