Spreekt u Engels?

So, how does racing in front of a crowd of 75,000 partying Dutch petrolheads sound? Interested? Idola certainly were and we were very happy to join our friends at VRM Motorsport to enter 3 Pragas in the Assen round of the Dutch GT & Prototype Challenge sponsored by Jack’s Casino.

The logistics to get 3 cars, 6 drivers, trucks, staff and all our gear to the Netherlands was quite a mountain to climb but we got there on the Thursday all ready for free practice and qualifying on the Friday.

This event is the largest held at Assen after the MotoGP and uniquely consists of cars, karts, bikes and racing displays. A number of race celebs were spotted around the paddock such as Nick De Vries and Tom Coronel, se we were keeping good company :).

In our SIlver car we had the pairing of experienced Praga racer and driver coach Ed Bridle, with Lilo Fyrileiv - direct from Norway, new to the Praga but already highly successful as a semi-pro karter. In the carbon car we had Venezualan Rodolfo Gonzalez straight from Madrid as our pro driver, accompanied by Nino LaRosa (ex CAM-AM star) flying in from Boston, USA for the event. In the white car we had Praga man Chris Bridle along with Will Stowell who already has a number of trophies from his racing with Idola this season.

Following the two free practice sessions we went out for the early evening qualifying session, our class was a mix of our Pragas, a Norma, radicals and an LMP3 car so quite a mix. Qualifying results were Stowell-Bridle on 2nd row alongside Gonzalez-LaRosa, and Bridle-Fyriliev on row 3. Front row was Alain Berg in his Norma and Bakker-Krueger in their Ligier LMP3.

For the race it would be a split grid start as the prototypes were joined on the grid by the Supercars which upped the start numbers to over 50! The start was clean for the prototypes by the supercars collided in turn 1 bringing a red flag out straight away for a delayed restart. This went a lot cleaner and although the race distance had to be shorted from 60 minutes to 50, there was still plenty of time for lots of action. All the Praga drivers did a great job, for all of them it was their first time at Assen circuit - they all improved from qualifying and the driver change pit stops were faultless. Final results were topped by Stowell-Bridle who achieved a podium of 3rd in class. Gonzalez-LaRosa did not finish after a high speed spin caused some damage to the car. Bridle-Fyrliev came in 4th in class.

Onto Sundays race and with the grid decided by the race 1 result we had the two Bridle brothers side by side on row 2! A much cleaner start this time around and lots of close racing. After the chequer fell it was Stowell-Bridle repeating race 1 with a 3rd in class, Gonzalez-LaRosa 4th and Bridle-Fyriliev 5th after being taken out by a saloon car causing damage to the car.

A brilliant weekend, we made lots of new friends and caught up with old ones - thankyou for having us along VRM and we will see you again :)

Now a mega quick turnaround for Brands Hatch Zeo Prototypes in a weeks time….