Class Victory at Historic Grand Prix Zandvoort

Following a scheduled engine rebuild and re preparation after their Qatar outing, Gary Furst together with Tolman Motorsport ventured out to the festival atmosphere of the Historic Grand Prix Zandvoort. This famous and storied racing circuit which opened shortly after the end of WWII provided a splendid backdrop to a wonderful mid summer weekend of motor racing.

Fridays qualifying session took place on a wet track and unfortunately ended with an off track excursion, the resulting impact breaking the steering rack. With our driver keen to continue we managed to source a brand new rack (one of the few parts we weren’t carrying) back in the UK. One member of staff was dispatched to collect the new part while another prepared to head straight to the airport for an evening flight to Schipol. After some negotiations with airport security our new part was safely delivered to the circuit and with a terrific effort from the team, the Lola was rebuilt, set up, and ready to go by 0830 on Saturday morning. Huge thanks to Jamie, Vic, and Owen, what a great job. This is when you see the quality of your people.

Saturday dawned much brighter and dry but the dramas in qualifying led to a less than amazing start position of 11th on the grid for Race 1.  An excellent performance in this 40 minute race with a compulsory pit stop resulted in a very fine finishing position of 5th overall and a class win by a healthy margin in the sub 2 litre “Marko” class. This was a great success following the challenges of Friday and a fitting reward for all who made it possible.

Race 2 gathered on the grid on a bright Sunday morning with Gary now starting from 5th after the previous days performance. Another 40 minute race this one, a repeat of 5th overall and a class win doesn’t tell the whole story. Taking the oppotunity to pit under a full course yellow kept the top contenders close - with the exception of Haas/Lyons who stormed to a distant overall victory in their DFV powered Lola T294 - and Gary was in contention all the way to the end.

With two clear class wins and 5th positions overall with only the much larger capacity V8 pwered cars in front this was another highly succesful weekends racing and a demonstration of the true spirit of the sport, well done to Gary and the team for a brilliant effort, here’s to the next one!

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