07.07.2008 Niko Shines at the Ring VLN Championship continued last weekend at fabulous Nürburgring Nordschleife circuit in Germany. First time in history, Finnish team participate to four hour race named 31. DMV-Grenzlandrennen. Westend Racing with its drivers Niko Nurminen and Jorma Vanhanen prepared Porsche 997 GT3 Cup racecar for CUP3B class. This high level one-make class inside VLN Championship had 13 cars in this race, including some experienced Porsche drivers and works teams. Niko's weekend started by Friday evening's free practise session. Despite having last race at Nordschleife almost an year ago, Nurminen had good pace and stop the clock on 25 kilometer lap for 9 minutes. "This was pretty ok start. I took first lap smoothly and try to find out how the setup is working. Everything was good and I pushed harder on next couple of laps. My personal target was that 9 minutes and I believe that I can improve my laptimes in tomorrow's qualifying" Niko said after practise. Saturday morning lighted up sunny and warm in Eifel mountains. Niko started qualifying and aiming top time at the beginning of session. On the third lap he set 8:49.317 which placed Finnish squad to eight position in their class and 24th in overall. In the afternoon when race was beginning temperature has reach 27 degrees and that meant hot conditions inside Porsche. Niko's task was starting the race and it really was action packed first hour of the race. From the beginning Niko had really good pace and managed to do some great overtakes and raise their position up to fourth in class. "Starting the race is always great, but it is also very hard due to battling. I overtake couple of cars and then it went a bit easier. Later part of my stint the heat was almost unbearable and we made the change one lap earlier than planned" Niko tells. Depsite of nil experience of Nürburgring, Jorma Vanhanen started his stint nicely and improved his laptimes. Especially the old part of circuit, the Nordschleife require a lot of bravery as well as consideration and patience from driver. By using these great features Jorma bring car to pitlane for refuelling and drivers change. Niko continued his equal performance lap after lap. Due to retirements there was a less traffic, but no room for mistakes. After third pitstop Vanhanen's task was secure good position inside class and overall race as well for Westend Racing. Five laps stint was good and Jorma managed to improve his laptimes. In the chequered flag Finnish squad marked sixth position in hard CUP3B class and 16th in overall race out of 171 cars. "Race went fine without any big mistakes and as a team we can be proud about result. Jorma did good race as a novice here in Nordschleife, and I can be happy to set same laptimes than top drivers in class CUP3B" Niko said. << back to news