Road racing

Circuit-Zolder 24 Hours pre-race notes

Anthony Kumpen goes for new record The Euphony 24 hours of Zolder will be held this weekend and this year's edition, the 28th Zolder 24 hours, will surely be a very good one. For the overall victory, the GLPK Corvette towers above all the ...

Edited: Dec 11, 2006, 4:12 AM

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Anthony Kumpen goes for new record

The Euphony 24 hours of Zolder will be held this weekend and this year's edition, the 28th Zolder 24 hours, will surely be a very good one.

For the overall victory, the GLPK Corvette towers above all the others. The team of Longin / Kumpen has scored four wins in four races this season and the line-up for this race - Kumpen / Longin / Hezemans / Mollekens - will be the same as for the Spa 24 hours, where the team finished on the third podium spot. GLPK has huge endurance experience, winning the Zolder 24 hours from 2002 until 2004. It was a very strong SRT squad that brought an end to the GLPK domination last year, after Bert Longin was involved in a race incident, resulting in a premature retirement for the GLPK team.

Thus, SRT won the race last year after a good fight with the PSI Porsches, the Kuismanen Viper, the AD Sport, Penders and RS Racing Porsches and the Eurotech Marcos.

This year, SRT again will be the main opponent of GLPK. David Hart might take the C5-R to a second consecutive victory, partnered this time by Marc Duez, Maxime Soulet and Tom Cloet.

Anthony Kumpen: "Of course, I want to become the sole record holder in Zolder. I'm still co-record holder with four victories, sharing the record with Vincent Dupont. But I'm a team player and another victory for the team is what counts the most.

Qualifying and pole position are of course relevant, but we will not take risks. Pushing the engine to the limit during qualifying almost resulted in a retirement in Spa and we do not want to experience that again.

We want to have a margin for the race, because our race strategy might vary and incidents could require a faster pace: the weather predictions are currently suggesting rain,

Winning the race is important to us, and we might even sacrifice the result and iome points after 6 or 12 hours if necessary.

Our main concern is the refuelling in Zolder. We have 20 litres less tank capacity than last season and with the manual pumps at the entry of the pitlane, this means a considerable loss of time, about four minutes for every quarter of the race.

Even though we have won all races this year, the Euphony 24 Hours of Zolder is still very important to us and we want to win, that's for sure."

The Euphony 24 Hours of Zolder might see a turnaround in the championship. The difference between SRT and GLPK is actually 24 points, but with 80 to earn for this race only, everything is still possible. As at Spa last month, in the FIA GT Championship, half of the points can be won after 6 and 12 hours.

And what about the competition for GLPK? Except for SRT, the main opposition should come from Eurotech. Even though a bigger rear wing has been refused, Marc Goossens, Danny Van Dongen and Mr. Marcos, Cor Euser, will still be strong contenders in their Marcos LM600.

Two other regular competitors, the Stealth and the AD Viper, will not be present. The good old AD Sport Porsche Biturbo will replace the latter. Albert Vanierschot (AD Sport boss): "I feel sorry for the Viper fans, but we know the Porsche very well and we still lack experience with the Viper, so that's why we opted for the German Biturbo. Koen, Kris, Patrick Schreurs and myself will race the car."

AD Sport will run two other Porsches, for Steegmans / Steegmans / Goninssen and L

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