2008 Nürburgring 24 hour endurance race
18 May, 2008
13 Comments 
Although not as prestigious and famous as the Le Mans 24hr race, next week’s 2008 Nürburgring 24 hour endurance race is a better example of amateur race drivers taking racing to the next level.
With 220 cars starting in 3 groups, this is not your typical race, cars range from factory backed supercars to everyday Toyota Corolla and even a Holden Commodore (more on that later). A race which puts all cars against each other in the world’s most famous race track.
Audi today officially announced its contention with a petrol Audi R8, bringing huge levels of experience from success at Le Mans with the diesel R8.
In order to meet race regulations for its class, Audi engineers have replaced the stock 4.2-litre V8 with a race-spec 4.0-litre with 410kW and 478Nm of torque. Volkswagen will enter the new Scirocco.
Another factory backed team is Lexus which is running its supercar, the LF-A.
Aston Martin is running a few cars as well, the DBRS9 as well as a few Aston Martin V8 Vantage N24s, one is even driven by CEO Ulrich Bez!
Other interesting cars include this rather peculiar-looking supercar from Germany. Using a unique petrol-electric hybrid powertrain, it’s called the Gumpert Apollo supercar and under the hood sits a 3.3-litre twin-turbo petrol V8 attached to a 100kW electric motor.
It’s in strong contention given one of the drivers will be former F1 champion Heinz-Harald Frentzen .
But closer to home, there are 11 Australian teams entering the competition. The two most interesting ones are Mal Rose racing’s Holden Commodore V8 Supercar and Osborne brothers’ Toyota Corolla.
The VY (VX pictured above) Commodore is powered by a 5.0-litre Chevrolet V8 mated to a six-speed sequential Hollinger gearbox. It currently has a top-speed of around 295km/h.
The Toyota Corolla is prepared and driven by Osbourne racing, this year’s entry marks the Corolla’s fifth year at the Nürburgring 24 hour.
Surprisingly, there is a lot of interest from Australians to run the Nürburgring race, so much so that CarAdvice reader Liam has setup an entire website dedicated to Aussies interested in the Ring. You can check out his website here. You’ll find heaps more information about Aussie drivers competing this year.
For more information on the race click here to visit the official website.
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May 18th, 2008 at 10:40 pm
Dunno if anyone realises this but is not a VY commdore it is a VX. just thought i mite point that out for the sake of correction.
On another note it is good to see Australians in such a race.
Go Aussie
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May 18th, 2008 at 11:04 pm
Thanks for the plug to my site guys, I appreciate that.
Arlester, you’re right in that the image above is a VX Commodore, but Mal will be taking an ex-GRM VY for this year’s race.
There’s a few stories on my site about both the Mal Rose Racing and Osborne Motorsports teams.
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May 19th, 2008 at 2:36 am
ok cool.
thanks for clearing that up for me.
Will be good to see how well the v8 does. cant wait
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May 19th, 2008 at 6:06 pm
I wish that they would stream this type of event on the net.
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May 19th, 2008 at 9:23 pm
When you see the Scirocco right above the Lexus thing, you realise just how far the Japanese still have to go in the styling department, before they are in the Euro league.
The Lexus looks like a backyard kit car next to the Scirocco.
The giant rear wing looks pretty silly on all the cars though.
Good to see some Aussies having a fang over there.
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May 19th, 2008 at 9:52 pm
@XR_2 … I was reading on a site somewhere today that there is audio of the event available online, but it may be in German, haha. Let me see if I can retrace my steps and find out for you.
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May 19th, 2008 at 9:59 pm
Found it … type in ‘Radio Le Mans’ into your fave search engine, or keep an eye on AUSringers.
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May 19th, 2008 at 10:02 pm
Oh, sorry for the triple post, but the other Aussie car to keep an eye on is Tony Quinn’s 911 GT3 RSR, they won the Dubai 24 hour with the car early this year.
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May 19th, 2008 at 10:20 pm
is Jim Richards schedule too full or something?
great to see the big aussie entries.
ill be sure to keep my eye on the happenings even if it means i will have to take interest in how the dark sides Ex GRM machine goes
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May 19th, 2008 at 10:38 pm
thanks Liam I will look it up,
I would like to see 220 cars on one track for 24 hours it would be a long day of watching (about 24 hours)but it would be good if they did this type of event live and online.
Nascar did it last year with the busch series and I could watch Marcus Ambros live it was sometimes about 3 in the morning but it was great plus they placed ad’s in it as well so they were making some money out of it.
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May 20th, 2008 at 9:17 am
@XR_2… Copy and paste this in to your browser - adac.24h-rennen.de/en - that’s the official site for the race and it looks like live streaming will be available.
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May 20th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
No Nissan GTR?! :-/
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May 27th, 2008 at 1:29 pm
There’s plenty of updates on AUSringers.com now, including a debrief from one of my mates driving in the Corolla.
Sadly, a lot of the Aussies had some rotten luck this year. Mal Rose’s V8 almost succumbed, getting a puncture on their last lap, but they managed to cross the line on 3 tyres and one dodgy rim to claim final classification. They came 31st outright to be best placed of all the Australian entrants.
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