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Sports Car Challenge 2006 |
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Tuesday, 01 August 2006 |
Eastern Germany has an active motorsports scene that dates back to the days of the former German Democratic Republic; at the same time the EuroSpeedway Lausitz stands for the American way of racing. In this sense, the Eastside 100 weekend was an interesting mix of East and West. Along with two races for Formula 3 cars on the banked oval, a number of support races took place on the infield track in its short 3.4km configuration. Thirteen sportscar racers converged for races 7 and 8 of the 2006 Sports Car Challenge.
Briton Tony Sinclair was ready for a return to his usual winning form after the black Hopckenheim weekend; he made this clear by clinching his almost customary pole position in qualifying for race 1 on Saturday. It looked like a clean sweep for the Jade team until the fuel pump had enough on lap 11, and Sinclair coasted to a halt on the banking.
Wolfgang Payr in the PRC with Cosworth V8 power had initialyl fallen back to fourth place but worked his way back into the lead, persistantly chased by Sabrina Hungerbühler in the Osella. The petite Swiss lady and her baby blue car don’t
make for the most aggressive package as far as sheer looks are
concerned; but out on the track the story is a very different one
indeed. Tenth by tenth, Payr’s advantage started melting. Across the
finish line, a mere 0,9 seconds decided the race in favour of the
Austrian.
Division 2 did see a Swiss victory as Pius Truffer once again had it
all his way and controlled his main opponents Peter Kormann and Emanuel
Pedrazza from start to finish. This meant a clean sweep of the class
podium for the PRC chassis, but with very different engines. Truffer
and Kormann use BMW powerplants; Kormann relies on a descendant of the
venerable Formula 2 engine that almost exclusively powered 2 litre
sportscar racing and the European Hillclimb Championship throughout the
1970s and 1980s. Pedrazza, on the other hand, fulfilled his role as PRC
test driver in one of his sporadic appearances in the championship, his
car was equipped with a brand new Honda VTEC engine built to FIA Group
CN regulations. A podium position for a new car, then; Pedrazza nearly
repeated this feat in the Sunday race.
| Pos. |
Drivers/Nationality |
Car |
Time |
| 1 |
Wolfgang Payr/A |
PRC-Cosworth |
15 Laps in 20:53,322 |
| 2 |
Sabrina Hungerbühler/CH |
Osella-BMW |
-0,919 Sec |
| 3 |
Pius Truffer/CH |
PRC-BMW |
-31,025 |
| 4 |
Gerd Beisel/D |
PRC-BMW |
-24,935 |
| 5 |
Peter Kormann/D |
PRC-BMW |
-47,640 |
| 6 |
Emanuel Pedrazza/A |
PRC-Honda |
-51,601 |
| 7 |
Gerhard Münch/D |
Norma-Honda |
-1:20,482 |
| 8 |
Gregor Fischer/CH |
PRC-Honda |
-1 lap |
| 9 |
Otto Dragoun/A |
PRC-Opel |
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| 10 |
Tony Sinclair/GB |
Jade-Nissan |
-5 Laps |
| N/C: |
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Karl-Heinz Matzinger/A |
PRC-Opel |
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Thomas Wolfert/D |
MRP-Opel |
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On Sunday afternoon, in front of some 20.000 spectators, Sinclair again
had pole position, and this time nothing and no one stood in his way as
he ended his streak of DNFs and took an important step back toward the
defence of his 2005 class title. Whenever he has finished a race this
year, it has been in P1, and still the three DNFs have done some
damage, he is currently only third in the overall series standings. The
fastest Division 2 contender, Truffer keeps appearing in the Top 4
overall - he did so again on Sunday – and keeps raking in valuable
points that put him in second place in the title chase.
Back to the race, where Sinclair’s cause was helped by Payr’s
misfortune; this time it was the Austrian’s turn to experience
technical problems only two laps into the race and pull off the track.
Sinclair then had his mirrors full of baby blue racecar for a while as
Sabrina Hungerbühler fought to keep up with the Nissan-powered Jade’s
pace. Ultimately, Sinclair controlled the race from the front as he
kept his advantage at a steady five to seven seconds. Germany’s Gerd
Beisel, the first race’s unlucky fourth (but still third in class), had
again opted to leave his ex-Daytona Norma M2000 in the garage and rely
on his trusty PRC-BMW. He fended off Pius Truffer for third place this
time, the Swiss of course a commanding winner in Division 2.
With Kormann again safe in second place and Pedrazza out after a sudden
loss of engine power, Karl-Heinz Matzinger in his Opel-powered PRC
secured third place in class. So far, former touring car driver’s first
season in soprtscar racing has been a rollercoaster ride that has seen
him either behind a towtruck or on the podium.
Result race 2:
| Pos. |
Drivers/Nationality |
Car |
Time |
| 1 |
Tony Sinclair/GB |
Jade-Nissan |
15 Laps in 20:53,666 |
| 2 |
Sabrina Hungerbühler/CH |
Osella-BMW |
-7,041 Sec |
| 3 |
Gerd Beisel/D |
PRC-BMW |
-31,559 |
| 4 |
Pius Truffer/CH |
PRC-BMW |
-36,573 |
| 5 |
Peter Kormann/D |
PRC-BMW |
-58,453 |
| 6 |
Karl-Heinz Matzinger/A |
PRC-Opel |
-1:15,954 |
| 7 |
Gerhard Münch/D |
Norma-Honda |
-1:26,930 |
| 8 |
Gregor Fischer/CH |
PRC-Honda |
- 1 lap |
| 9 |
Thomas Wolfert/D |
MRP-Opel |
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| 10 |
Otto Dragoun/A |
PRC-Opel |
-2 Laps |
| 11 |
Henry Uhlig/D |
PRC-Opel |
- Laps |
| N/C: |
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Wolfgang Payr/A |
PRC-Cosworth |
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The Sports Car Challenge stays in the former Eastern Block for its next
two races, in support of the Czech Truck Grand Prix at Most on August
26./27.
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The Sports Car Challenge is a road racing championship for sports
prototype and single seater racecars that takes place on 8 weekends on
tracks in Germany, Italy, France, and the Czech Republic. Now in its
eleventh season, it features cars with up to 600bhp similar to those
seen at Le Mans.
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Last Updated ( Saturday, 06 January 2007 )
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