18 hours: Is ProSpeed cruising to victory or will First put its spoke in?

With only a fourth of the race to go, it appears as though everything is quietly falling into place, although we could still expect to see an offensive from First Motorsport. Up front ProSpeed Competition has dropped three laps. At the time of the Mégane's retirement the lead on the nearest rivals amounted to seven laps, but the Liege based Porsche team decided to reduce the pace. In the meantime the First Motorsport Porsche 911 GT3 Cup S and the Delahaye Ferrari F430 GT3 are going flat out. François Verbist in the First Porsche has once again put in some impressive driving hours and is closing the gap with the leaders at a rate of some 3 seconds per lap. The Ferrari is still experiencing a stubborn starter motor and with each pitstop the team has to push-start the car, which results in a Stop & Go-penalty.

Duncan Huisman has also managed to bring Kuismanen Competition back into the race, in fourth spot, even though it is 23 laps down on the leading Porsche. The Chrysler Viper GTS-R is tirelessly churning up the laps, but reducing the gap with the top-three is a hopeless task. With only six hours to go a fourth place should be feasible, especially seeing the top-three are not showing any signs of weakness. Only a problem could bring Kuismanen Competition to the podium. Excellent fifth place still for the Porsche 997 GT3 Cup of Speedlover, and good for a third place in the Belgian GT. Seeing Koen Wauters and Jeffrey van Hooydonk are only following in seventh overall, fourth Belgian GT, Hemroulle and Verbergt could well be further reducing their arrears in the championship in a few hours time.

Slotted between the Speedlover Porsche and the Dodge Viper Competition Coupé of KRK Racing we find the Chrysler Viper GTS-R of AD Sport. KS Motorsport has found its way back into the top-ten. The BMW M3 Silhouette manned by Moonens-Redant-Gepts-Stoeltie is still performing well. The car bearing number 22 is presently in eighth place. Brilliant - and unexpected - is also the ninth place overall of the First Motorsport Porsche 997 GT4; and also leader in Division 2 of the Belgian GT. The top-ten is rounded off by the other BMW M3 of KS, which had experienced some problems with a stubborn oil sensor. "For a moment we feared a damaged engine, but it turned out to be a poor working sensor. It did cost us twenty minutes, but we're now going out to hunt down a good final ranking ", Steve Vanbellingen told us.

The Lamborghini Gallardo GT3 of JD Competition by KS wasn't able to hold out through to the end without becoming the victim of mechanical problems. The differential gave up the ghost and the car has been sitting in the pitlane for a while. As for VDS Racing Adventures there's more adventure afoot. One problem after another, retirement is not in the Van der Straten vocabulary. There are presently still twenty cars I the race.

The top ten overall:
1. #60 ProSpeed Competition - Porsche 996 GT3 RSR - 634 laps
2. #50 First Motorsport - Porsche 911 GT3 Cup S +4 laps
3. #3 Delahaye Francorchamps Motors Racing Team - Ferrari F430 GT3 +6 laps
4. #12 Kuismanen Competition - Chrysler Viper GTS-R +22 laps
5. #20 Speedlover - Porsche 997 GT3 Cup +27 laps
6. #14 AD Sport - Chrysler Viper GTS-R +33 laps
7. #4 KRK Racing - Dodge Viper Competition Coupé +52 laps
8. #22 KS Motorsport - BMW M3 Silhouette +58 laps
9. #150 First Motorsport - Porsche 997 GT4 +60 laps
10. #21 KS Motorsport - BMW M3 Silhouette +61 laps

VZW 24u.be - Gordon McKay on Sunday 23 August 2009 at 10:47.