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BELCAR SHORT NEWS 2006-04-27 – BSN11

Last week, Koen Wauters took the former GLPK-Viper back onto the track at Zolder, for its rollout in AD-Sport colours. AD Sport bought the car a few months ago and spent some time getting the Viper into Belcar 2006 spec. Koen proved to be a valuable driver by setting lap times of about 1’33”, which looks promising for the future. Koen Wauters has spent his entire career with AD Sport, driving Porsches, but he managed to adapt quickly and without any major problems, even though the Viper is a completely different machine compared to the Porsche Biturbo. Power, weight distribution and especially torque are very different – but the well known Belgian pop star was very impressed by the torque of the Viper.

AD-Sport team owner Albert Vanierschot explained that little time is left to test the car before the next race. This week Circuit Zolder is taken over by the Renault World Series and next week the AD Sport team races in the Dakar 6 hours, also called the Grand Prix of Africa. Nothing is sure about the AD-Sport line-up for the next race of the Belcar series. The Viper is very likely, but not definite yet. The Porsche Boxster still lacks some development and the team might return for the second race with the good old 993, which finished surprisingly well in Spa. Schreurs and Daniels finished 11^th overall and third in Class-2 of the Mediagroep van Dyck Belcar Original. The same crew also won the Mediagroep van Dyck Belcar Endurance Cup on Saturday.

Flandria Rent NV finally announced its complete line-up for the Flandria Racing Team in 2006. Miss Belgium, Virginie Claes, becomes the ‘godmother’ of the Belcar Series team. In the Belcar Original we’ll see two Porsches in Flandria colours: Kelly Jamers-Dirk Van Rompuy (First Motorsport) and Chris Mattheus-Stephanie Boden (André Van Hoof). Boden and Mattheus won the class-3 in Spa and finished in an astonishing 6^th overall.

The team will also race two MINI Cooper Ss in the Mediagroep van Dyck Belcar Endurance Cup with Flemish show-biz stars. The first car goes to three gentlemen: Peter Hopmans, Ronny Daeleman and Christof van de Parre, while the second MINI will be the ladies’ one with Hilde Gysbrecht-Emily Kino-Ingrid Baert behind the wheel. André Van Hoof takes care of the preparation and assistance of both of the MINI Coopers. Guy Horemans might also race one the MINIs, while Angelo Callant will compete in the Belcar Sprint Cup with a Toyota Yaris entered by First Motorsport.

Internationally, Chris Mattheus represents the Flandria team in the Michelin Porsche Supercup. Last weekend, he drove his second race of this highly competitive series at the wheel of his Porsche 997 GT3 Supercup.

“I again gained some experience and made another step forward,” explains the driver. “I still have two main problems compared to most of the other drivers. First, I don’t know the tracks and so I have to learn them, which is difficult with so little practice time. The second reason is financial. In some circumstances, I react rather conservatively, as I know the limits of my budget better than the limits of my car. Most of the other drivers do not have to worry about this item. I also miss the chance to do sufficient testing. Most of the teams went testing in between Bahrain and Imola while I stayed at home. I really need a test session at Spa or in Zolder in order to discover the limits of the Porsche.”

“For sure, a blank cheque wouldn’t be the solution, but I would take some more risks and possibly win a few places. Now, I don’t go for the full 100% everywhere and this means losing time in a hyper-competitive series such as the Porsche Supercup. But throughout the season, I’ll gain in experience and I know also that I’ll be quicker in, for instance, the Belcar Original.”

“I am not competing in the Belcar Original with my 997, which is a pity. But the rules of the Belcar Original stipulate that new GT3-cars have to run in class-2, while a 996 competes in class-3. As it’s impossible to be competitive with the 997 in class-2, I would have to run against the 996 GT3-RS or Mosler V8, we chose the 996 even though this means that I have to switch from the 996 to the 997, two entirely different cars.”

“I’m very proud that Stephanie Boden and I won the first race in class-3 and it’s also an answer to all the critics.”

At BRAVO (Belgian Racing Automobile Vintage Organisation), the driving force behind the Historic-races, they are pretty sure that the competitors’ field in the short term will be growing considerably. Notwithstanding the fact that 27 Historics were on hand for the first meeting, this was not the intended result. The main reason, according to Xavier Moerman, spokesperson for BRAVO, is to be found in the fact that the regulations and the race data were published very late.
“Thanks to Circuit Zolder and the perfect collaboration with Marc Martens we were able to start up the Historic-competition, and this now appears to be one of the fastest growing motorsport disciplines”, Moerman clarified.
“The Belcar umbrella has now also allowed us to race separately, independent from the modern Sprinters. Specific magazines that specialise exclusively in old-timers believe this to be an excellent move, and breaking away from the modern Sprinters is a first-rate publicity for our championship. In addition the fact that we have now ended up in the Belcar-weekends is, from a publicity angle, an absolute bull’s eye. Our intention was over a period of time to create an independent championship. For us therefore the Belcar umbrella is a gift from heaven. Our appearance during the Q8 Truck Grand Prix will also definitely be a publicity high-flier. The only area we are now presently working on is to further raise both the quality and the quantity. Quite obviously there is a great interest being shown. This is also partially due to the fact that at FIA level Historics are being tossed on to the stage. And this is precisely our scene. We can therefore over a period of time expect to welcome a horde of competitors. In my opinion this could even run to 50 cars. For the next competition interest has been made known by a real BMW M1 Procar, a Cobra and a Porsche RSR. We might also eventually raise the year of manufacture in order to attract cars on the grid such as the BMW 635 CSI and Rover Vitesse, that in their heyday provided some great thrills on the track”.

BSN 11 (en)