DKRC: Danes kick-off at Løvel

Category: May, Miscellaneous, News Posted 07.05.12 14:38 by Eddi Laumanns

Daniel Svenningsen, Søren Mortensen, Rasmus Nielsen and Peder T. Jensen claiming class victories during the Danish Rallycross Championship opener at the Løvelbanen.

Source: RallycrossDK

The 2012 Danish Rallycross Championship had its kick-off on Friday, May 4 [‘Store Bededag’; ‘Great Prayer Day’, a national holiday in Denmark] at the Løvelbanen. The DKRC series has four different classes. The standard ‘1600 Group N’ class’ is once again dominated by Honda Civic drivers. Also this time at Løvel, where Honda competitor Daniel Svenningsen took his first win in the class by leading home three other Civic campaigners.

In ‘Super1600 + National1600’ ERC regular Ulrik Linnemann took part in this Danish championship event. Anyone expected it to become an easy prey for Linnemann, but it was Jacob Schnoor who won the A final start with his Peugeot 106 Maxi. When both drivers had done their Joker Lap (at Løvelbanen faster than a normal lap!) it was still Schnoor who was leading Linnemann. However, during lap four it came to contact between the two drivers when Ulrik hit the back of Jacob’s Peugeot. The 106 driver slid off into the loose soil and Linnemann was able to take the lead before Schnoor regained control of his car. Linnemann was subsequently black flagged for the incident while Schnoor had to retire a little later with a broken drive-shaft of his Maxi 106. All to the advantage of Søren Mortensen (Citroën Saxo) who became the winner ahead of Mike L. Frederiksen (Peugeot 206) and John Larsen (Nissan Sunny GTI).

In ‘Super2000 + National2000’ Rasmus Nielsen (Honda Civic) started the 2012 season the way he finished the series in 2011 – with yet another win. This time Nielsen left Dennis D. Christensen and new Super2000 campaigner Rune Staudt (both Renault Clio Mk2) behind. Nielsen has started the year well chasing his 5th title in a row. The ‘SuperNationals’ class was won by Peder T. Jensen and his big Volvo 240 leading home Volvo colleague Morten Schnack and Audi driver Jakob Pedersen.

The Rallycross cars in Løvel were joined by the so-called ‘Legend Cars’. Those vehicles are popular in tarmac racing and visited Denmark for the fist time, for a demonstration run on partly loose surface. The cars are 5/8 scale copies of American cars from the 1930s. They are powered by 140bhp 1200cc Yamaha motorcycle engines. One of the specials was driven by former Formula Ford and Formula 3000 star Jason Watt while Ulrik Linnemann raced another one. Watt was a raising star in the Formula 3000 series 1997 to 1999, when he competed against drivers like Juan Pablo Montoya and Nick Heidfeld. In 1999 he finished the series as runner-up 1999 to later Formula 1 driver Nick Heidfeld. Later on Watt, after a motorbike accident, became paralysed from the waist down. Nevertheless, as soon as he could get behind a steering wheel again he made his racing comeback and won the Danish TouringCar Championship of 2002.