The longtime VLN pilot Rolf Derscheid and winner of the 2014 season is one of the flagship amateur pilots within the VLN family. With a manageable budget and a lot of enthusiasm, he and Michael Flehmer started with a BMW 325i in the class of VLN production cars up to 2.500 cc. In 2013 he achieved his 25th class win and took us on a lap of the Nordschleife.
The Grand Prix circuit itself is not particularly exciting. With our 228 PS-strong E90, you have to see above all that you take a lot of momentum on all corners. Due to our standard brake and a not to be underestimated total weight of 1.365 kg you can leave a lot of time.
When it finally goes on the Nordschleife, it will be exciting. The fast right-hander at the beginning of the Hatzenbach section is fully loaded. After that you have to find a soft line and in the last left turn before Hocheichen take the curb with you. However, one must be careful here that it does not spoil one. I do not particularly like the Passage Hocheichen, because here it is often smooth and the car is very easy in the sloping left turn behind. From there it goes full throttle over the top and the following curves at the airfield. That just fits. At the Schwedenkreuz I lupfe only briefly and then see that I catch the right braking point for the Aremberg curve. The valley in the fox's tube is still full, before for the left turn behind a hard braking maneuver follows. In the right-hand bend in front of the Adenauer Forst you have to hit the curb exactly and then down to the third gear and through the chicane. This place has not really gone into flesh until today.
In the direction of Metzgesfeld it's back on full throttle and the first left-hander is only slightly luffed the gas pedal. The passage Kallenhard to Wehrseifen is damn fast in fourth gear and it is more of a head thing, if you shortly the brake antickt. The Wehrseifenkurve itself I take in second gear, then it goes to the fourth gear to the Breidscheid bridge. The wall gets closer to you faster than you would like, so it's important to keep the car on the move in third gear and take the right turn Exmühle with as much speed as possible.
The following uphill passage is not particularly exciting due to the lack of performance. A question of conscience is only the courage curve in the Kesselchen area. If you want to reach a time of less than ten minutes, you can neither brake nor luff. You can also often see here that faster vehicles are suddenly several car lengths behind after the courage curve ... In the carousel you have to make sure that you take as much momentum as possible at the exit. The passage up to the Hohe Acht is full in fourth gear, only before the last right-hand bend at the main post I can easily accelerate to get around well.
Now a section that I really like begins. Downhill towards Wippermann is a lot of fun on a dry slope. It is good to have the necessary respect when wet. Then it continues smoothly to the well and then briskly through the right curve towards the planting garden. Despite our 1.300 kg, all four wheels are in the air on the small jumping hill. That doesn't work with the big jumping hill, but then it goes in fifth gear towards the dovetail. You have to take the passage on the gravel bed fairly precisely and have it carried out far in order to then aim at the small carousel. The steep curve goes in third gear and I accelerate up to fourth gear up towards the gallows head. From there, full throttle is the order of the day and I engage fifth gear at the Audi bridge. Before the Hohenrain chicane, the brakes are tested again before turning onto the start-finish straight.
As you can see, in many places we have to take the necessary momentum with us. Time is often lost when faster vehicles stab in places where it just doesn't fit and I have to pull back so far that I cannot make up for this time in the following passages. Here I sometimes want a little more vision ...