Belcar Test Day Report
Under a dark sky, with heavy clouds and rain drifting across the Ardennes, Belcar 2006 got underway today – writes Joost Custers. For some it was a shakedown, while others had covered a fair mileage by the end of the day.

Major teams present today were:

PSI Experience with two Biturbos (Menten / Maes & Thiers / Thiers)
GLPK: Corvette C5-R and C6.R (Kumpen / Hezemans / Longin)

SRT: Corvette C5-R 005, the 007 was also present but did not run (Hart / Jeroen & Sebastiaan Bleekemolen)

Van Moerkerke: Stealth B6 (Van Moerkerke / Hillebrand)
AD Sport: Porsche Biturbo and RS (Kris Wouters)

KS Motorsport: 2 BMW M3 Silhouettes (Leyssens / Fumal and Smets / Lumbeeck)
Eurotech: Marcos LM600 (Van Dongen / Goossens)

Rudolph Racing: Viper SRT 10

G&A: BMW 130i
Plus First Motorsport, GS Motorsport, Speedlover, N-GT, McDonalds, ProSpeed (below), JMT, Ham Car and S&P Racing with different Porsche variants.

Last but not least, the Ascari race team was present with an Ascari KZ1R, driven by Klaas Zwart. This car was last seen in the Spanish championship and might come to Belcar this year. Klaas Zwart explains: “This is a GT2 version of the car, as it drove in Spain last year. We are here to check whether it is competitive in Belcar. The car is slightly different from our GT3 cars for the FIA-championship as it is larger and somewhat more developed. Other possibilities are the Dutch Supercar and Euro GT.”

No, Rhino’s GT Series, Klaas.

Ben Collins, a star for Ascari at Le Mans in the past, returns to the Dutchman’s fold.

Anthony Kumpen had a busy day at Spa: “We have the shakedown of our C6 and C5 today. Bert, Mike and I are driving both cars and our main task is a general shakedown and a tyre test. As we gave up Pirelli, we are testing two tyres makes today.”

Later in the day, GLPK announced that Michelin would be the supplier for the 2006 FIA GT car.

Jeroen Bleekemolen was another happy fellow at Spa. “I already drove a Corvette here with GLPK in last year’s 24-hour race. There is almost no difference between the SRT car and the GLPK that I drove last year. SRT is a smaller team but on a high level and with a good atmosphere. I think David Hart and I have a fair chance in the Belcar championship, even though GLPK will be hard to beat.”

Val Hillebrand has still some work to do with the Stealth, as he admits: “The Stealth is basically a very nice car, but this team is completely new and we have a long way to go. My job is not only to race but also to guarantee the set-up of the car. Over the winter period, the team did a good job and changed the suspension and shock absorbers (now Moton). The engine also received an update. Our aim should be to race as many kilometres as possible and to find a place ahead of the Porsche and right behind the Corvette.”

There was no time keeping and the weather conditions made it hard to perform and test consistently. Some drivers pushed their limits and even beyond, but no major incidents occurred. The next and final test day is next week at the revised Zolder track.