FIA GT Championship - Proximus 24 Hours of Spa
Introducing The National Competitors In The 24 Hours
© Joost Custers

As usual, the entry list of the Spa 24 Hours features teams and drivers from national, mainly Belgian and French, series. Most of them run in Group 2 and 3, although SRT is entered in GT1. This year, we also see good support from teams racing in the Le Mans Series (PSI Experience, Gordon, GPC and Spyker) and even some FIA GT3 runners (Pouchelon and BMS) – proving that teams really do appreciate the opportunity to race over 24 hours, especially at Spa. But in this article we concentrate on real national entries.

In GT1, there is only one national entry, the #35 SRT Corvette C5-R. It is SRT’s fourth participation, with last year’s eighth as best result – so far. In 2003, ‘04 and ‘05 it was chassis number 007 that raced at Spa, but this year it’s the newly purchased 005 that we’ll see.

The crew is also partly new, with Chris Buncombe being the first Briton ever to drive a privately entered Corvette C5-R. Other drivers are team regular David Hart and Belgians Maxime Soulet and Geoffroy Horion.

In GT2, we find no national competitors, whereas Group 2 has plenty of them.

The #107 Red Racing entry might be the last Chrysler Viper GTS-R ever to race in the 24 Hours. C18 has an impressive race record and the high point came in 1999, when it won the FIA GT round at Homestead, beating the works cars.

Red Racing is the team of JJ Fournier Laroque - he also owns the former works Lister. The team is an FFSA GT regular, but also plans some outings in FIA GT this season with the Lister. The driver line-up is a mix of French gentleman drivers and a very fast young Belgian driver, Olivier Muytjens.

The #194 Prospeed Porsche 996 GT3-RS is the car that won the national class last year in the hands of Franz Lamot and Rudi Penders. This year, Jean-François Hemroulle joins them. The aim of the team is to get as close as possible to the Manthey 997 GT2 and to try to catch up with the other Porsche 996s in GT2. Rudi Penders already announced that he will run a 997 GT2 in 2007 and that his team might be seen in the Le Mans Series.

Prospeed also enters a 996 Cup in Group 3 for WRC winner François Duval.

Last but not least, there is the #199 BMW M3 GTR entered by RaceAlliance. This BMW is in fact a Duller 3.2 M3 and a similar car raced as a Touring Car in BTCS last year.

Group 3 is somewhat different this year. From 2001 on, Porsche has won every single year, but the arrival of the FIA GT3 cars could change the outcome of the Group 3 race. Pouchelon Racing (two Dodge Vipers) and BMS (one DBRS9) are the FIA GT3 regulars. All the other teams race in France or Belgium.

The #105 First Motorsport entry is a newcomer in Spa. But the team has been active for over 15 years in Belgium. For the last three years, First has been a regular competitor in Belcar and the team has gathered some podium finishes in Class 3 this year. Peter Van Delm and Jean-Claude Meert drive for the team in Belcar and both have several years of endurance experience. Maxime Martin is of course the son of Jean-Michel Martin, four-time winner at Spa and driving the #55 JMB Ferrari 430 this year. This youngster is active in FR 1600 and drove in the MINI Challenge in the past. Finally Dries Heyman is a young Belgian gentleman driver.

The #110 GPR Porsche 997 is the car entered in BTCS. GPR has participated at every Spa 24 hours since 2001 and obtained some good results in Group-2 and Group-3. GPR is the only team that enters a 997 Supercup, identical to the cars used in BTCS. The drivers are all endurance regulars. Tom Cloet is one of them and wants to participate in all the 24-hour races: he competed at Le Mans some weeks ago.

The #116 Signa Dodge Viper is a somewhat special case. Signa Racing raced a Renault Spyder in Spa in 2002 and from 2003 to 2005, the team entered a Porsche in Group-3. This year’s Viper is entirely new and had its shakedown one month ago at Zolder. The aim of the team is to develop the car and get it up to GT2 specifications. Patrick Chaillet, team owner, even dreams of Le Mans. By the end of the year, the team hopes to compete in some rounds of the FIA-GT Championship.
The drivers are all Belgian; Loïc Deman has prototype and GT-experience, Christophe Geoffroy is a very fast Belcar and VdeV driver and Laurent Nef is a typical good gentleman driver.

Pilotage Passion enters two cars; the #117 Porsche 996 Cup (the team ran this one last year) and the #118 Dodge Viper Compétition. The latter is an FFSA-GT GT3 car and competes in the whole series in France (Nozière/Brouard), whereas the Porsche normally runs in VdeV (Lévy/Lévy). All drivers come from either VdeV or FFSA-GT, except for Oliver Baron and Gerard Tremblay who raced in the Le Mans Series also.

Speedlover, entering the #121 Porsche Supercup, has somewhat the same record as First Motorsport. Jurgen Van Hover drives for the team in Belcar, Roger Grouwels has his own team in Belcar (Dodge Viper) and Julien Schell is a FFord 1600 driver in France.