The #151 “Pirelli Junior Team by RONAL” faced this challenge with huge support, in particular the spare cart provided by the experienced #50 “Hausexperten.de III” team from the “German Team Championship (GTC)”. Only a few team members knew anything about how the championship worked or its rules. So, this was also the first lesson, followed on the Friday by free practice and the fitting of the cart (by applying foil) in the well-known Nordschleife “Zetti” design.
Coming in at position 26 of 40, the morning qualifications brought a touch of disillusionment and disappointment to the faces of the team members. But hey, this was a long-distance race after all! So, let’s go! In the summer heat, the 24-hour chase began at 2 p.m., and #151 completed its laps steadily following an initial jostle. Then after 2½ hours – oh dear! – #151 accidentally collided with its sister cart #50. Luckily there was no damage, “just” considerable time lost for both teams.
Whether in the evening hours or at night – #151 kept to 7th place in its class. With each lap, with each pit stop, with each hour and with each driver change (every two hours at the latest), the maneuvers became more and more masterful. Lo and behold, on Sunday afternoon #151 was in 5th place and coming up to 4th. So, time to attack! No sooner said than done: After 24 hours and 1393 laps (we would have won with that number in 2018), “Pirelli Junior Team by RONAL” took 22nd place overall, as well as being placed 4th of 16 teams starting in the cup class, and was also the best rookie team in Wackersdorf. This spoke for itself. The reward was exhausted but beaming faces and sparkling eyes along with a large silver trophy.
Of course, we would like to congratulate our great inspiration, sister cart #50, for its hard-earned victory in the trophy class! A special thank you also goes to the strategists and above all to the technicians – neither of the carts experienced any problems.
