NURBURGRING OLDTIMER
There was a very good entry of 43 cars for the traditional Nurburgring Oldtimer – amazing to see that this was the 42nd edition – although there were a few non-starters. Michael Hibberd (Lotus 27) withdrew before hand for business reasons, Francesco Baldanza (BT6) also withdrew for personal reasons, Michael Ashley-Brown (Volpini) was worried about his engine and Philippe Bonny’s Tecno F3 was not ready.  Two newcomers to the ranks were Dr Johannes Offergeld with the ex-Simon Smith Cooper T56 running in Class E and Monopole driver Gilbert Lenoir with the Elva 200/006 formerly raced by John Dowson.
Friday practice saw pole claimed by Pierre Tonetti (Brabham BT6) with 2’02.840”, 0.12” faster that Jonathan Hughes, also BT6, then Christian Traber (Lotus 22), with John Dowson going very well to set fourth fastest time. Row three comprised Felix Haas (T59) and Urs Müller (Lotus 20/22). Comfortably the most rapid in a poorly represented Class D was, as expected, Ivo Göckmann (Jolus) whilst C was headed, also by a big margin, by Kim Shearn’s Lotus 18. Whilst Heinz Stege’s black Elva 100 was quickest in class B, his 2’19.531” was rather put in the shade by Michael Gans’ Class A Stanguellini who lapped in 2’15.263”.
Race 1 was at 10.15 on Saturday. The weather was dry but earlier rain left a damp track. Practice casualties were Peter Knöfel (Emeryson) with engine problems, Dietrich Merkel (Britannia) due to head gasket trouble and Jörgen Brynne (Merlyn) who pulled off with driveshaft failure on the green-flag lap.
From the start the charge into the first corner saw Hughes with Tonetti alongside, with Manfredo Rossi (Lotus 22) just behind, then Traber and Dowson, Philipp Buhofer (Lola 5A) and Felix Haas side-by-side. At the end of the opening circuit it was Hughes, Rossi, Tonetti, Traber and Buhofer. In the first right-left chicane - the Yokohama S according to the circuit map – it seems Rossi made contact with Tonetti and on lap 2 Rossi was observed to be down in sixth, whilst there was a clear gap between Hughes and Tonetti. This gap was over 8 seconds on lap 4 and although Tonetti whittled it down to 5 seconds, first and second looked set.
Behind these two there was a tremendous dice involving Traber, Buhofer, Haas, Dowson, Stuart Roach (Alexis Mk4), Mark Pangborn (Lotus 20), Müller and Rossi. Although places changed every lap, basically the story was one of Roach climbing through to take third place. Then he fell back behind Buhofer and Traber. With 9 laps completed Tonetti slowed coming out of the second part of turn 1; a driveshaft had broken. So the race ran out with an easy victory for Hughes, 20 seconds in front of Buhofer, who in turn had 2.6 seconds in hand over Traber. Roach was right on Traber’s tail, then a 4 second gap to Haas, Pangborn, Dowson and Rossi. These were followed by Göckmann, of course the Class D winner, then JP Campos Costa (Lola 5), who nipped past Müller on the last lap. Urs had spun on the exit of the first “S” on lap 7, and Campos Costa had also had a spin on lap 5.   One of the best dices down the field was between Caroline Abbou-Rossi (BT6) and John Lord (Lotus 20/22); they were split by only 0.8” at the flag.
Class C was an easy win for Kim Shearn, runner-up Pierre Guichard (Faccioli) being a lap down. Greg Thornton dropped out from D1, as did the sole C1 car, the Swebe of Lars-Göran Sjöberg which suffered its seemingly inevitable gearbox trouble.  Class B went to Erik Justesen (U2), 30 seconds ahead of Bob Birrell (Lola 2). Heinz Stege spun. But, both were soundly out-paced by the blue Stanguellini of Michael Gans, who ended a remarkable 17th overall and only just lapped. Second in class A was the red Stanguellini of marque-expert Jan Biekens. In addition to those mentioned, the other dnfs were Jens Rauschen (BT2) and Peter Laier (Lotus 22) who ended in the gravel on lap 2. Duncan had a “moment” when his planned route through the first “S” was suddenly occupied by Sharon Adelman’s Brabham and the consequent evasive action led to a full-stop to avoid hitting the barrier. 
The race schedule was rather unhelpful. Formula Junior had been race two on Saturday morning, but the second part was the final race on Sunday, meaning a great deal of hanging about and a late departure for home. What made this all the more frustrating was that for a couple of hours in the middle on Sunday afternoon there was minimal track activity, just a BMW presentation – yes, ok, the sponsors have to be kept happy – and a regularity event for vintage sports cars, the rules of which were presumably known to the competitors but it hardly seems to constitute “peak-time viewing”. What’s more the forecast rain arrived and by the start time of 17.30 it was very, very wet and gloomy, with hanging clouds in the valleys of the Eifel – and most of the spectators had understandably left for home. It is to the great credit of Formula Junior that a high proportion of the entries nevertheless came out to race. The defaulters were Gilbert Lenoir, still getting used to his new car, Dietrich Merkel who thought it rather pointless after having to non-start yesterday and Offergeld also opted out. Others not to appear were Traber, Adelman, Stege and Müller. Andrew Hayden came out for the warm up lap but an exploratory lap persuaded him that the volume of spray rendered it was too dangerous to be worth racing.  Brynne and Laier were, however, able to start this race.
The good news was that the race was really worth waiting for. The race started with a lap behind the safety car, which saw Tonetti head Hughes in to turn 1 when the green flags appeared. At the completion of the opening lap these two had a huge lead over third placed Haas, who was followed by Rossi, Buhofer, Dowson and Roach. Rossi spun on the exit of the “S” and the lap chart at the end of lap 2 showed Roach up to fourth and it was clear he was really flying in the very tricky conditions. Lap 3 and he was third. Two tours later the Alexis was on the tail of Hughes’ Brabham. Hughes was attacking Tonetti and slipped through on the exit of the first “S” on lap 5 but was back in second at the end of the lap, whereupon on lap 6 Stuart moved into second braking for Turn 1. But, this was clearly not the limit of his ambition and on both the start of laps 8 & 9 the Brabham and Alexis were alongside each other into Turn 1. On lap 9, of what was to be a 10 lap race, the orange car led the yellow one. By the end Roach had a 6.4” margin over Tonetti with Hughes a further 6” in arrears to score a memorable international win for Alexis, 49 years after the greatest Alexis victory of all time at the Eifelrennen F2 race at the Nurburgring.

Of the rest, Felix Haas drove an excellent race to be fourth, with Manfredo Rossi fifth, recovering from a spin that had dropped him to tenth. Buhofer was next, trailed by Dowson and Göckmann, all fairly spread-out. If Michael Gans had been impressive in race one, in race two he was astonishing – 13th overall ahead of several Class E cars. Shearn won his class and Thornton reached the end this time. In Class B Floris-Jan Hekker in the Rayberg climbed from 25th to 20th by overtaking Birrell, C Rossi, Deneve and, on the last lap, Erik Justesen to win the class. Birrell and Deneve also battled, swapping places on the final tour. Finally, mention must be made of Duncan who clearly felt that the race needed livening up for the handful of remaining spectators in the stands at the first “S”. Braking on wet painted lines can be “interesting” and the Alexis performed a neat 360° spin, happily avoiding the barrier on the inside.

On aggregate Jonathan Hughes collected maximum points from Roach, Haas, Buhofer, Rossi and Dowson. The other classes were
E2 – Wishart
D2 – Göckmann – Deneve
D1 – Thornton
C2 – Shearn – Guichard
C1 – no finisher
B – Justesen – Birrell – Hekker
A – Gans – Biekens – di Egidio

By Richard Page