36th DMV 4 Hour Race<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

There is something very special about being at the N\u00fcrburgring when the winner of the race is a\u00a0Merc\u00e9d\u00e8s-Benz.<\/p>\n

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\nOne recalls the company\u2019s first post-war win on the Nordschleife in 1952, when a team of four\u00a0300SL models (uniquely in open form just this once) dominated the sports car race which\u00a0accompanied the German Grand Prix that year. These cars had a close affinity to the current SLS\u00a0AMG GT3 cars, as Engineer Rudi Uhlenhaut had been given permission by the Daimler-Benz board\u00a0to create a sports car provided that it made as much use as possible of parts from the production\u00a0300 Saloon. The resultant car did admittedly have a space frame but it evolved a year or so later\u00a0into the famous production gullwing 300SL Coupe which was as much a GT as anything at the time.<\/p>\n

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\n( Image courtesy of Daimler-Benz AG )<\/p>\n

The occasion for this latest three-pointed star success was the second round of this year\u2019s\u00a0Veranstaltergemeinschaft \u00a0Langstreckenmeisterschaft N\u00fcrburgring or VLN for short!<\/p>\n

It is a series of\u00a0races round the Nordschleife \u201cproper\u201d circuit for GT\/Touring cars and on average there are usually\u00a0about 200 starters which, like the similar field in the 24 Hour race, are set off in three separate\u00a0packs. It seems to work very well and if there is an incident official cars\/rescue vehicles go round to\u00a0the scene while everybody carries on racing \u2013 no safety cars picking up leaders here! There are\u00a0plenty of classes to cater for different specifications \u2013 26 categories in this race \u2013 and with such a\u00a0long lap (14.2 miles) the cars are soon spread out.<\/p>\n

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This round was a four-hour event with 203 starters. Not surprisingly the manufacturers use these\u00a0races as a preparation for the forthcoming 24 Hours. For example, BMW has elected to do the first\u00a0three rounds this year, winning the season\u2019s opener.<\/p>\n

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There were no less than eight of the new Merc\u00e9d\u00e8s taking part, all run by private teams but with\u00a0the support of the factory. The car had made its competition debut here in the September 2010\u00a0VLN race but crashed early on; it scored its first win in the following round and took a third place in\u00a0that year\u2019s final race.\u00a0(The car which finished 21st)<\/p>\n

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Porsche continued to develop its 911 Hybrid. This was the first appearance of this year\u2019s new car: it\u00a0is about 50 kilos lighter, has less engine power to improve economy and more power is sent to the\u00a0front wheels. Also, the air intakes ahead of the rear wheels have been deleted.<\/p>\n

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\nThe Aston Martin Test Centre nearby uses VLN races to perfect its products.<\/p>\n

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By the end of the race 63 cars had retired leaving 140 finishers. The always competitive Manthey\u00a0Porsche followed the victorious Merc\u00e9d\u00e8s (driven by Chris Mamerow and Armin Hahne) home;\u00a0then came one of the \u201cworks\u201d BMWs, another Mercedes, the second factory BMW and in sixth\u00a0place the first of the Audi R8s.<\/p>\n

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\nTAILPIECE<\/p>\n

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\n\u00a9 2011 Words and images by David Blumlein<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

36th DMV 4 Hour Race. There is something very special about being at the N\u00fcrburgring when the winner of the race is a\u00a0Merc\u00e9d\u00e8s-Benz. One recalls the company\u2019s first post-war win on the Nordschleife in 1952, when a team of four\u00a0300SL models (uniquely in open form just this once) dominated the sports car race which\u00a0accompanied the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[75,54],"tags":[105,104],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.doubledeclutch.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1161"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.doubledeclutch.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.doubledeclutch.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.doubledeclutch.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.doubledeclutch.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1161"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.doubledeclutch.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1161\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1173,"href":"https:\/\/www.doubledeclutch.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1161\/revisions\/1173"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.doubledeclutch.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.doubledeclutch.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.doubledeclutch.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}