It’s the worst-kept secret of the whole week, but it’s about time that we announce #TeamBTG will be joining the 2016 VLN Championship thanks to an amazing new partnership with Milltek Sport and Manheller Racing!
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But this isn’t just a great opportunity for BridgeToGantry.com to go racing wheel-to-wheel at the world’s most awesome racetrack. It’s also a great opportunity for you, the BTG reader, to win some cool stuff and come and take a small part in a VLN weekend yourself!
(And for my fellow racers, yes we have all the BMWs still available for arrive’n’drive from V4 to SP6!)
Full press release at the bottom of the page!
This is the car. A brand-new Ford Fiesta ST which started life as a 100% stock car only a week or two ago. Within hours of delivery, the Manheller boys had stripped it down to a naked shell and sent it over to Tom Schirmer’s place for a full welded-in safety cell.
Milltek Sport
Milltek Sport are the guys and girls behind hundreds (maybe thousands) of performance exhaust systems. With type-approval and ECE certification, as well as bespoke motorsports applications, you’ll find their exhausts on the fastest performance cars all over the world (including this one). They have an unbreakable link with motorsport, being the title sponsor of the VW Cup in the UK, and veterans of the 24hr-series (I raced with them at Barcelona last year). They’ve done everything from endurance racing to TimeAttack. Now, they’re doing the VLN with BTG and Manheller!
Manheller Racing? Nitron? Racelogic?
All in good time my well-informed facebook sleuths! But yes, all of these great companies are playing a part in this tale. Manheller bought the car (not a small thing!), Nitron are currently capturing Unicorn-horns to craft their magic 3-way-adjustable suspension units and Racelogic are farming more 1080p HD pixels as we speak.
I will be explaining each part of the team and the car in more detail soon, and kicking off a competition to win a free Milltek Sport cat-back exhaust very soon!
Here’s the full and proper release:
The Nürburgring Nordschleife is known, respected and feared all over the world. But while the headlines often fawn cars that make one or two fast laps of the old 20.8km circuit, the real battles are in the fabled VLN championship.
With 42 solid hours of endurance racing at a world-class level, the Nürburgring’s VLN series is a single circuit, 10-race endurance championship with an international status.
It’s into this maelstrom of GT3s, Touring Cars, Sports Prototypes and Production cars that Milltek will be stepping into with a new Ford Fiesta ST. The car will be built and prepared by local team Manheller Racing, and driven by the Anglo-German pairing of Englishman Dale Lomas and German Lucian Gavris.
“Campaigning a hot-hatch at the Nürburgring is a massive challenge,” explains Dale Lomas of BridgeToGantry.com. “While it’s easy to watch the top 20 GT3s battling for the lead, the best dogfights are often lower down the field, in the production classes. The overall VLN Championship winner is not decided by who won overall, but by who was the most successful in their class. Previous winners include four-door BMW saloons and Renault Clios. We’d love to add a Fiesta ST to that list.
Each race is four hours long, with one six-hour special in September. Due to the massive length of the combined Nürburgring GP and Nordschleife (nearly 15 miles/25km), starting grids can often be as large as 200 cars, making it the biggest race in the world by numbers.
The Milltek Fiesta ST will be starting in the class VT1, for production-based cars with turbocharged engines up to 1620cc. While the class is strictly controlled to remain faithful to its production status, there are still many options open to improve the performance.
“We’re confident that with the team’s experience and Nitron’s expertise in Nordschleife suspension tuning, Milltek Sport can take the smallest car on the grid and make it into a real giant-killer,” said Milltek boss Steve Pound. “Milltek Sport exhausts are already proven at the Nürburgring and racetracks all over the world, in both reliability and performance. ”
The first race of the series is due to be held on April 2nd, broadcast on German domestic channel Sport1 and livestreamed for free at vln.de/live
For more information about Milltek Sport, visit www.millteksport.com
