Danny Dubois: "It will either be green, or grey?!"

Danny Dubois is more than any man suited to be leading the 28th edition of the 24 Hours of Zolder. Dubois will be relying on several years' experience as a race director. Organisation is the secret ingredient according to the sympathetic Limburg-based Belgian: "We try to prepare everything up to the finest details. Our aim is to have a response to any situation occurring during the race week, before it even gets started. Sometimes still unexpected things happen. Yet by meticulously planning everything else you create the time necessary to deal with those."

So what about safety and visitors? "We're obviously expecting a huge crowd. That's why it's necessary to make the entire track a safe place for everyone. This year we will be investing in additional First-aid service points as well as extra personnel. We also decided to be limiting the pitlane crowd to an absolute minimum. We will ensure this using more rigorous surveillance, in the boxes as well as in the pitlane. On one hand it's still our aim to offer the Belcar crowd a truly accessible championship. On the other hand we need to guarantee a flawless, safe and synoptic race week", Dubois tells us.

For the Euphony 24 Hours of Zolder there have been some slight regulatory changes compared to regular Belcar races. Danny explains: "We decided to abandon the limitations on the number of tire sets available to the teams during qualifying and warm-up. This will likely incur an even bigger speed gap between the top teams and the other teams, yet on a 24 Hours race these changes will have not the slightest impact on the final result. Also teams with Diesel engines will not be allowed to refuel at the refuelling zone. We'll offer to them an alternative solution."

For Dubois it looks like he already knows the winning make. Yet the name of the team will not be decided before 5pm on Sunday: "I can assure you one thing. It will either be green, or grey?! Next to the Corvettes from GLPK and SRT I'm also expecting quite a good result from the Rudolph Racing Team. Their Dodge Viper SRT/10 will be an interesting outsider in a race like this."

New for this year's 24 Hours of Zolder will be the disappearing of the showgrid. There will be a grid line-up, yet with limited access for some guests. This decision has been made upon the pilots' request, yet also with the rigorous timing schedule in mind.

VZW 24u.be - Jan-Frans Lemmens on Saturday 26 August 2006 at 16:28.