By Wolfgang Monsehr, Staff Writer
HEUSDEN-ZOLDER, BELGIUM – Under warm and sunny autumn weather conditions, the final runs for this year’s NASCAR Whelen-Euroseries took place in Belgium with an interesting challenge in qualifying and the first race-heat over the distance of 75 kilometers on Saturday at the former Belgian Grand Prix-Track of Zolder-Terlaemen.
Despite his rivals trying every possible ‘legal’ trick in qualifying, it was reigning Euro-Champion Vittorio Ghirelli and his PK-Motorsport Chevy Camaro, who set the benchmark both in qualifying and the Superpole shoot-out, when the Italian secured the best starting-spot, followed by Frenchman Paul Jouffreau, Dutchman Bruno Mulders, American and SIM-Racer Garrett Lowe and Swiss Thomas Toffel.
Rette-Jones/Team Hendriks-Motorsport representative Liam Hezemans put his Ford Mustang in a 7th spot, ahead of the Italian duo with Gianmarco Ercoli and Fabrizio Armetta, and the 10th and last spot in Superpole-Qualifying/Shootout went to German Julien Rehberg.
Despite the fact that there was nothing much to complain about his Chevrolet Camaro of the German Marko Stipp-Team, Ryan Vargas was starting from 16th overall.
“The car is ok. No troubles. But of course, you are always looking to improve,” said the driver from California-native Vargas.
Going into the race over a 75-kilometer distance or 21 laps, there was soon chaos after the start. Jouffreau and Mulders made heavy contact with their cars, and for both the Frenchman and the young Dutchman, everything was over before it had even started. But Vittorio Ghirelli had everything under control when taking the lead, first followed by Thomas Toffel, Gianmarco Ercoli, Liam Hezemans and Julien Rehberg.
But, of course, after the Jouffreau-Mulders incident, there was a full-course yellow for several laps. At that time, Vargas and Garrett Lowe were running 13 and 14, respectively, but the restart brought another change: Hezemans was able to out-brake Gianmarco Ercoli and kept Ercoli under safe control.
“Unfortunately, Vittorio Ghirelli was too far away to launch an attack. So, I had to settle for 2nd overall,” Hezemans explained later.
When Ercoli brought home a safe 3rd overall behind fellow countryman Ghirelli and Hezemans.
Julien Rehberg had bad luck as he could not hold the pressure of Thomas Krasonis and Sebastiaan Bleekemolen. He dropped down to 6th overall. Vargas had an acceptable race and finished 13th as Garrett Lowe was stuck in traffic during the restart and dropped down to 18th.
The most unlucky driver was the Swiss driver, Thomas Toffel. At the start, Toffel had contact with Ghirelli and got a one-minute penalty from race control. After a short pit stop, his race ended in a disappointing 22nd overall. Besides winner Vittorio Ghirelli, local hero Marc Goossens got standing ovations from the crowd.
Goossens, not living far away from Zolder, had done a deal on short notice with Italian team owner Fabrizio Armetta to race in Zolder. He stepped into the car without having done any tests before and was rewarded with 9th overall.
“Originally, I had planned to run the complete NASCAR Euroseries again this year,” Goosens said. “But then an opportunity turned up to be involved with Porsche-Belgium in the management of the Porsche-Cup and this offer was much too good to refuse it,” the Belgian veteran explained. It was nearly 30 years ago when he was helping a confident Fernando Alonso move up to Formula 1, when he was coaching him to success in the FIA Formula 3000 Championship (now the current FIA Formula 2).
The current soap opera saga of the German Oschersleben-Circuit and its future to hold a NASCAR Euroseries event in the future is far from over. Despite the NASCAR Euroseries events during the last three years being very successful and everybody involved wanting to go back to Oschersleben, the possibility of having a NASCAR Euro round again in the near future is very small. The current rumors are that the German ADAC, currently the owner and organizer of the DTM-Series, had put pressure on Oschersleben and its staff not to hold another NASCAR Euro round, as the ADAC regards the NASCAR Whelen Euroseries as their most dangerous and direct rival championship.