25 Hours of spa - report
Markus won the legendary 25 Hours of Spa sharing the MPM Racing car with Michel Piulinx, Armand "Peter" Fumal, Francois Verbist and Pil Corthals. The race was extremely close and after 24,5 hours the MPM quintet were leading with just 2 seconds. With a defect engine, they were in trouble holding the opposition back, but then luck intervened and the car of the closest opponent broke down and MPM cruised to victory. To be fair, MPM had their share of troubles as well, including a debatable 3-lap penalty that ate away the team's clear lead. However, after full 25 hours of racing, Verbist crossed the line first and it was time to celebrate a well earned win.
"I've been asked to do this race for a few times, but it never happened before this year. I raced for Michel last year in the 24h of Zolder and we had great time in addition to a podium result and I thought that it would be fun to race again for his team. Fumal was in that Porsche with us last year and Verbist and Corthals are local heros, so I knew everybody well and knew that we should have a shot for a good result. The series is called Fun Cup and we really had a lot of fun during the weekend and especially after it!
We had a good start, but then hit some trouble that dropped us back a bit. The race turned for us during the night, and wet when we were pushing like idiots and in the morning emerged with a 3 lap lead. It already looked safe for us until we got a strange penalty that cut out 3 laps of our results. We dropped to 2nd and fought back to the lead just to be challenged for it until the end.
These cars are not too quick comparing to the GTs I'm usually racing, but you still need to push to be fast. With over 160 cars on the grid, there's a lot of action during every single lap of the race. It's also a big event with loads of specatators and great atmosphere.I already talked to some Finnish friends that they should do it next year!"
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