What's a team without fast drivers? Slow. What's a team without good mechanics? Quite nothing.
The fifth race of the Belcar season 2019 was promising to be the hardest: the 24H of Zolder. We were challenged to keep our car going for 24 hours, while trying to achieve a place in the class top three. Easier said than done, even considering the past races turned out pretty well.
"We started out very motivated", states driver Erik Qvick. "During the qualif our guest rider Nico Verdonck set a stunning lap time, which gave us the opportunity to start the race from fourth row. Tom Van Rompuy went in first and did a great job, bringing the car up till seventh position in general and first in our class! Next to go was John Rasse. Just like Tom, he's used to this car and he managed to keep our position safe. All was going great but then the third stint brought us into trouble..."
The V8 Marc Cars II suffered from mechanical problems. Not just one... After three hours of racing, the engine broke down. As the race had just started, the mechanics decided to replace the engine. "I can't be more thankfull. Our team of mechanics worked super hard and replaced the engine in just two hours, which is ultra fast. We went back on track but as if it weren't enough, our gearbox had to be replaced as well", Erik tells. "Luckily our team did not give up and delivered a stunning performance again. As we started driving again, we had a lot of catching up to do. We had dropped all the way down and were 39th in general and fourth in class."
The race for a position in the general rankings was quite lost but as the other cars in class III got into trouble as well, the way to the class top three was open again. "We tried to maintain a good but safe lap time and bit by bit we came closer to the stage. After hours of catching up, we achieved the second place in our class. But the Lamborghini of the WCB Leipert team was way ahead - ending up even fourth in general. We didn't win class III and we were nowhere to be seen in the general rankings but the silver class medal felt as a great victory", Erik says. "Every single person in our team fought so hard for it, and even though it looked very bad at the beginning, it ended up pretty great!"
