Another race of the Winter Series took place at Assen

Last weekend, Miroslav Forman, Šimon Kubišta, Stanislav Lepka and Radek Bareš, with an Alfa Romeo 147 GTA car, took part in a racing event of the well-known Dutch Winter Endurance Series. They were the only drivers from the Czech Republic to contest the four-hour race at the 4,550m racing circuit near Assen (www.tt-assen.com), in the northern part of the Netherlands. In total, almost forty cars had been entered for the race, each of them with a crew of three or four drivers, who were taking turns at the wheel in the race.

In the qualifying, the Czech Republic's Chase Pullman Motorsport team claimed the sixth position of the grid in its category. The first driver at the wheel in the Sunday race was Miroslav Forman, who gradually moved up to run fourth. After about one hour, Šimon Kubišta took over the driving. The third driver at the wheel was Stanislav Lepka, who took over within the third hour of the race. At that time, however, a defect of the engine became evident, and Lepka, consequently, had to retire from the race, and the fourth driver of the Czech team, Radek Bareš, was not able to make use of his skills in the race.

'It is such a pity. We were running well in the race, and we could have even claimed a podium spot in our category. The weather was cold, but there was no rain. After the short winter break, this was a good training in a real race for our drivers and the team,' Dušan Šlechta, the team's manager, commented on the weekend race after coming back from Assen. And, he went on: 'The next race is held at the first weekend of March, this time at Zandvoort, by the sea, on the track surrounded with sand dunes. We all believe that the car will stay the course this time.'