Nurburgring 24 Hour Race: Audi R8 LMS Goes for Win

Practice begins on Thursday, May 21, for the most important motorsports event of the year. No, not the Indianapolis 500. Not the Grand Prix of Monaco. And not the Coca-Cola 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway.

Of course I’m talking instead about the ADAC Nurburgring 24 Hour Race. This will be the 37th running of this endurance race on the 14.2-mile Nurburgring Nordschleife, and 220 cars take the green flag. If your German language skills are up to speed, you can even follow along on the event’s Web site, which features plenty of video clips: http://adac.24h-rennen.de.

The Nurburgring 24 has become the leading motorsports test of production cars, and all the car companies build specially tuned hot rods, and that includes Aston Martin and Lexus as well as the usual suspects from Germany.

This year Audi is making a big effort with its recently developed Audi R8 LMS, a GT3-class version of its midengine sports car. The car has been built and developed by Abt Sportsline and four examples are entered. It’s the 100th anniversary of the Audi nameplate, so the guys from Ingolstadt are pretty serious about winning this thing.

There will be a motorcade around the circuit on Wednesday, May 20, and practice begins on Thursday, May 21. The race begins on Saturday, May 23, at 4 p.m. local time. If you can get access to Germany’s DSF broadcast network, you’ll find the 14 hours of coverage worth watching. These guys will be catching some serious air. Michael Jordan, Executive Editor