Despite the global economic downturn, the world-famous 2009 ADAC Nürburgring 24 hour race proved to be a well-attended event with 170 cars taking the start.
Qualifying was run to a slightly different format this year with an evening session on Thursday, followed by an afternoon session on Friday. Usually the cooler evening temperatures would enable the cars to run quicker in the first session but due to intermittent rain showers, the lap times on Thursday were relatively slow, meaning Friday's shorter session was frantic as all the teams tried to take advantage of the sunny weather.
The #55 Brückner Motorsport Carlsson CK35 RS Mercedes SLK had run relatively competitively in the damp conditions, but a freak engine failure prevented all but Peter Venn from completing the mandatory two laps per driver. An all-night effort by the Brückner Motorsport team saw a spare engine fitted prior to Friday qualifying, this engine being of a slightly lower specification, a fact which would play a decisive role in the race.
Pete, together with other team-mates Yasushi Kikuchi (professional Japanese Super GT driver) and Wolfgang Kudrass (very experienced Nurburgring Nordschleife racer) each put in the same qualifying lap time of 10:12, good enough only for 10th position in the SP6 class. "I was disappointed with the car's handling at that stage. We had a lot of power understeer which meant we were losing time on every corner exit and there are about eighty corners here! We spent a lot of time with Rainer and the engineers, and made some changes to the set up which helped a lot to balance the car."
The #55 car would start close to the back of the first start group, three start groups being determined by class. Wolfgang Kudrass would take the first stint, followed by Peter Venn, Yasushi Kikuchi and finally Pete, who would therefore take the car into the night. However, on the out-lap to the start, Wolfgang found the car would not start, and frustratingly the car slipped back to the third start group, meaning a long fight through traffic to catch up to the SP6 runners ahead.
Nevertheless, consistent driving by Wolfgang brought the car up to 108th place overall by 2 hours, 82nd place by three hours (after Peter Venn brought the car in), 73rd place by 5 hours (after Yasushi had completed his first stint), and 58th place (fifth in class) at the end of Pete's run. After ten hours (2am), the car was up to 55th place (fourth in class) and Peter was ready to take over from Yasushi when bad news came in on the radio: the car had had contact with a Porsche on the front left wheel and the steering was bent. Yasushi indicated a problem with understeer on right hand corners and the car's lap times dropped at this point.
"I climbed in and immediately found the understeer to be severe. The car must have taken quite a knock. I was able to maintain a reasonable pace but up through Klostertal on my first lap out, I turned in to the long right hander and the steering just broke, sending me into the barrier."
Fortunately, the impact was more-or-less broadside, and Pete was able to recover the car to the pits despite only partially functioning steering. The team sprang into action to repair the steering and front suspension, but also then noted the rear left suspension was mis-aligned after the impact. There was some uncertainty as to whether this would also fail so Pete elected to take a gentle lap around the Grand Prix track (part of the overall lap) to check the car. Even this proved to be a challenge as the clutch had jammed, making it difficult to manoeuvre the car out of the pit garage as the car was stuck in gear.
Eventually, with the lap completed, Pete decided the car was good to go, despite more oversteer on the right handers than was ideal, thanks to the rear suspension issues. He completed his stint and handed the car over to Wolfgang as dawn broke. The car had dropped to 87th place overall, albeit still 4th in class. Wolfgang, Peter Venn and Yasushi all completed their next stints without drama, the car rising to 78th position overall but still several laps behind third position in class.
Pete then took over for his third stint, and quickly adapted his driving style to the unusual handling, immediately putting in the car's two quickest laps (10:00.950 and 9:59.247) and clawing back up to 71st position overall by 11am. However, on his third lap, accelerating through the fast curves after Pflanzgarten, the engine suddenly lost power.
"We had been taking fifth gear early at Pflanzgarten, to avoid destabilizing the car over the jump there, and the car was not revving highly, so it was a surprise when the engine suddenly failed. I could hear it was not running on all cylinders and I had no choice to cruise back to the pits, hoping it was an electrical problem that could be fixed."
Unfortunately it was clear when the team inspected the faulty cylinder that something had broken within, and struck the spark plug, signalling the end of the race for the team. There was nothing to do but rue an opportunity lost as the race was ultimately won by the #1 Manthey Porsche 911 GT3 RSR (Bernhard / Lieb / Dumas / Tiemann). The SP6 class winner was the #69 BMW Z4-M Coupe of Adams, Ludwig. Meier and Grossmann.
"I really feel we could have had an excellent result here with Brückner Motorsport," Pete commented. "We had a series of issues, even at the start which affected our race, the impact with the Porsche in the night then being the catalyst for several other problems. I'm very grateful to Rainer Brückner and his team for the chance to drive this car. I found the team and drivers a pleasure to work with and I am excited to hear already of Rainer's plans for the future."
