Spa, 18th of May, 2018

Spa-Classic, the now traditional event held by Peter Auto on the famous Ardennes track mid May, was long awaited by fans as it’s one the very first event for historic racing in this northern Europe area.

This year two new series were included in the event. First one was a grid dedicated to Porsche 911 2,0L. Second was the « global endurance legends », where one can see demonstration laps with modern sports and prototype cars from the 90’s and 00’s. Among them were two Corvette C5R, a Venturi 400LM, some Ferrari 360 GT and F430 GT, a Jaguar XJR15 and an amazing Bentley Speed 8 driven by Shaun Lynn.

Another evolution from last year concerns the « Trofeo Nastro Rosso . It has now been opened to non-italian related cars and renamed « The Greatest’s Trophy ». Thus one can admire a Jaguar tye E lightweight or an Aston Martin DB2 along with the cars that used to fill the grid of the Trofo Nastro Rosso (250 SWB, Bizzarini, 275 GB/C, Porshe Carrera Abarth). May we expect that this change will allow Peter Auto to get this series growing again?

The plebes cited « Heritage Touring Cup » was re-conducted with an ever growing grid of 45 cars, including many BMW 3.0CSL, some BMW 635 CSI, Ford Escort, Capri, a few Rover… Both races were dominated by Christian Traber on a BMW 3,0 CSL with a gap of more than 30sec in front of the second.

The Classic Endurance Racing 1 saw the two fastest cars of the qualifying session not taking part in the race. Both Montverde/Pearson on their 512M and Lopez/Meaden on a Lola T70 were enabled to join the grid. With this retirements, the victory came to the Chevron B19 of Philipp Bruehwiler who was third on the grid. One of the highlight in CER 1 was the red Porsche 917/10 Can-Am of Didier Cazeaux, but unfortunately the car had mechanical troubles that lead to its retirement before the qualifying session. In CER 2 Marc Devis had a great drive to won the race in his TOJ SC 303 after starting only 11th on the grid.

The highlight for « Group C racing » was the return to the track of a few « Silk Cut » Jaguar that had nearly disappeared of the scene of historic racing in the recent years. With an XJR8, XJR9, XJR11 and two XJR14 this was a rare opportunity for fans to see so many of these in an event. One Peugeot 905 was also present, allowing us to hear the fantastic sound of its V10. The qualifying sessions saw Ivan Vercoutere and Ralf Kelleners take the pole position on a Porsche 962 just ahead of Christophe d’Ansembourg’ Jaguar XJR14. Vercoutere/Kelleners were enabled to transform this pole in victory taking second place in both races while Steve Tandy on his Spice SE90C and Raymond Narac/Michel Lecourt won respectively the first and second race.

All the drivers of this 8th edition of Spa-Classic had the chance to race their cars on a dry Spa-Francorchamps track all the week-end, giving the opportunity to provide great spectacle to the large number of spectators present again this year. Rendezvous is already taken for the next edition in May 2019.