24h of the Nürburgring 2006

This year we had splendid sunny weather during the whole race and the fans gathered on mass. The race itself was another great experience with some well prepared and interesting cars like the Manthey Porsche, the Alzen and Land Porsche's, two Lamborghini Gallardo, the Wiesmann GT, the Holden Monaro, the fast BMW GTR's of team Scheid and Getrag, the Duller BMW M3 with H-J Stuck, two Dodge Vipers and many many more. The pace in the race was set by the yellow Manthey Porsche which had pole position and ran very well like it did last year. The Alzen brothers in the H&R Porsche weren't running their turbo monster anymore, but a more reliable 520bhp 997 model, and settled for second place. Unfortunately disappointing in my opinion was the Holden Monaro, which not only was quite slow, but it had absolutely no sound! Luckily the Matador sponsored Wiesmann GT made this up with a fine V8 roar and some spectacular looks.

Unfortunately the Scheid BMW GTR crashed heavily at Quiddelbacher Höhe early in the race. The car was a total loss and the driver had some knee injuries. We followed the race till about 03.15 in the morning and at that time Manthey was leading in front of Alzen and the Land Porsche, followed by the Getrag BMW.

The next morning the leaders were still in the same position, except that the Getrag BMW had given up the race and left fourth place to the 'second' Dodge Viper. The 'first' Zakspeed Viper had to give up already in the night. Unfortunately for the Land Porsche crew their blue and yellow Porsche came by with a fire in the engine area 2,5 hours before the finish and couldn't be repaired in time. So in the end the well earned victory went to the Manthey Porsche with a nice second place for the Alzen Porsche. Third place went to the consistent driving Dodge Viper, followed by a Porsche GT3 Cup car. And probably the biggest surprise of all was the fifth place of the well prepared BMW 120d (!), which is something like a kitcar with a 245hp diesel engine and a top speed of 230 k/ph. Unbelievable what this small car performed between the Porsche's and many other cars with lots of horsepowers!