The three-day ADAC Westfalen Trophy took place for the 11th time at the Nürburgring on the weekend of October 14-16, 2016. For many of the more than 500 racing cars in eleven racing series, this was the season finale and the decider for the trophy in the overall standings!
On offer was everything from formula racing in the GLP Pro to thoroughbred GT sport in the STT, in other words everything that gets the pulse of motorsport enthusiasts racing.
Normally, the organizers of historic events are very strict when it comes to vehicle vintages and so you often only see vehicles up to youngtimer age. At the Westfalen Trophy, however, spectators were treated to an attractive and varied mix of racing cars right up to the modern era, including the very latest Porsche Cayman GT4 Clubsport and Jürgen Alzen's own Ford GT3, which is very popular with fans and also contested the current VLN.
The weather on Friday and Saturday was typical for October in the Eifel. Cold and windy on Friday and foggy and wet on Saturday. Sunday, however, made up for everything with glorious sunshine and pleasant temperatures.
Hot duels already in qualifying
The race got underway on Friday with training sessions and qualifying in the various series. Some drivers tested the limits and a few even went beyond them. Over the course of the morning, the drivers became more courageous and had some very nice duels in the practice sessions.
Around midday, the first race of the Belgian Historic Cup took place. The first winner of the Westfalen Trophy was Luc Moortgat in a Porsche 964 Cup.
The DMV BMW Challenge and the AvD Historic Cup followed in the afternoon with the first races. In the latter, a rare guest caught the eye, an aerodynamic prototype that is not often seen: a Shrike P15. These raced in England between 1985 and 1989, mainly in the "British Thundersports Championship", a racing series made exclusively for prototypes, but which were also permitted in the Can-Am and Group C2.
Special Touring Car Trophy as a highlight for many fans
Friday's highlight was the qualifying sessions in the Special Touring Car Trophy (STT). The STT was established in 1986. This created a new field of activity for the many Group 2 and Group 5 cars from the German Racing Championship. The series became particularly well known through its participation in the 24-hour race at the Nürburgring and the DTM. In the early years, Porsche 935s and BMW M1s were the main contenders for victory. In the vehicles up to 2000 cc, the duel was usually BMW 320i against Audi Quattro. The 1600 cc class lived from the close battles between VW Golf and VW Scirocco drivers.
This broad and fascinating mix of vehicles is still on offer today: from the Porsche dp935 and the 6.2-liter Passat from the V8 Star series to the newly built Porsche 962 from Frikadelli Racing, there was plenty of power on offer. Frikadelli Racing is otherwise better known to VLN fans. In 2013, however, team boss Klaus Abbelen launched a special project and built an ex-"Andretti" Porsche 962 C. The first race took place in the same year. The Frikadelli boys proved that the car had plenty of power in the second race, where they took victory and left modern racing cars such as the Mercedes SLS AMG and Porsche 997 GT3R in their wake! Even Jürgen Alzen's home-built Ford GT3 (photo in the photo gallery) was unable to keep up with this pace.
Another interesting vehicle at the start of the STT for us lovers of historic motorsport was the yellow Porsche dp935 of Jörg Lorenz.
This 935 once raced as a Group B car at Le Mans before being converted by DP Motorsport at the end of the 1980s. In 1996, Friedrich Leinemann and STT legend Otto Altenbach raced it through the Green Hell. Under the huge rear section, a 2.65-liter Group C engine with 720 hp provided the drive for a time. To build on these successful times, Jörg Lorenz gave his Porsche another horsepower boost. The 3.6-litre engine now mobilizes around 710 hp and an impressive 820 Nm. Including the driver and additional weights, the Turbo Porsche weighs just 1280 kg. A special class was created for such vehicles within the STT in 2015, the "STT Classic". However, the 2016 season victory in the STT Classic was claimed by main rival Jan van Es in a Porsche 993 GT2.
Interesting premiere of the DMV NES 500
New this year was the DMV National Endurance Series (NES) race, which took place as a pilot race for a completely new series in 2017. The premiere of the DMV NES 500 was won by Guido Heinrich and Felipe Fernandez-Laser (Mercedes SL 63 AMG). Unfortunately, only 18 cars were on the grid in total. Nevertheless, the concept of "motorsport for little money" could work, but it still needs to establish itself. We'll know more next year.
Waiting in the fog - sunshine at the evening endurance race
On Saturday morning, it was a case of waiting, as most of the track was shrouded in fog. However, this cleared quickly and the race was able to start an hour late. As the timetable was very tight and the races were not supposed to go on until dark in the evening, the individual training sessions, qualifications and races were shortened. As a result, some races were only just under 18 minutes long. The cloudy weather just wouldn't go away. In the afternoon, however, the sun came out more and more often and during the long-distance race it even stayed out for longer periods. Just Eifel weather!
The two GLP Pro GT and touring car races offered real popular sport. From the Trabant 601 or VW Beetle to the De Tomaso Pantera GT4, all performance classes were represented. This was GT sport at its very best!
At the end of the day, the first race of the DMV NES was on the agenda. The race, which was shortened to 210 minutes due to the weather, started with 18 cars. The winner was
Sunday all about the "Green Hell"
A weekend at the Nürburgring without the Nordschleife is not a proper race weekend and a proper race weekend without endurance racing is not a perfect race weekend. So two endurance races took place on the Nordschleife on Sunday. The Youngtimer Trophy and the Dunlop FHR Endurance Cup shared the track for two hours. Of the 80 cars that started, 75 saw the checkered flag after 2 hours of racing action. As last year, Maximilian Struwe took victory in the green Porsche 911 RSR, followed by Stefan Oberdörster / Andreas Gülden in the Porsche 911 Turbo and Andreas Sczepansky in the Porsche 911 3.0 RSR.
The event concluded with the three-hour "Schwedenkreuz" race of the Rundstrecken- Challenge-Nürburgring (RCN), also on the Nordschleife. Although it is not a classification race, it is certainly one of the most important RCN races of the year. Marc Hennerici and Harald Geißelhart took victory here in the Porsche 991 GT3 Cup.
