Ronny Gabriels Photography

Two weeks after the BTCS and Belcar Championships were officially presented in the streets of Leuven, they both had their start last week in the Gordon’s Finest Race at Zolder circuit.  The BTCS had rounds 1 & 2 of the championship on the calendar that day and the Belcar Endurance Championship had it’s first 150 minute race.


What was clear from the get-go was that both championships had a good starting field which was especially the case for the Belcar.  Although this new season actually merges the former Belgian GT and Dunlop Sport maxx championships, to me it seemed as the new Belcar was greater than the sum of it’s parts.  The starting line-up was, for lack of a better term, impressive.  Not only the cars, with the Dodge Viper, Porsche GT3 RS, Aston Martin DBRS9, Audi R8, Lamborghini Gallardo and more, the driver line-up was probably even more impressive.  Next to the well known names from earlier season like Jeffrey Van Hooydonck, Bert Longin, Pierre-Yves Corthals, the Wauters brothers and many more, there were some more international sounding names as well starting with Anthony Kumpen (FIA GT), Marc Goossens (IndyCar) and Jaap Van Lagen (FIA WTCC).  So all the ingredients were there to make a great racing weekend and a great start of the season.



The BTCS held some superb new additions as well.  Especially the new Volkswage Scirocco, that we got to see in Leuven already, was a very nice addition to the line-up, but probably the most anticipated new car was the (world premiere of) the Volvo S60 Racer.  OK, it’s just a race car with a Volvo S60 body-kit in essence, but it was stunning to see.  Volvo and Volkswagen for that matter could not have chosen better representation in the Belgian Touring Car Championship.  There were other newcomers as well.  I personally liked the pretty inconspicuous Mitsubishi Lancer Evo and hope to see a lot more of that car in the next races.




For me personally this is going to be an exciting season as well I hope.  Hopefully my “Day-at-the-races” is a bit of a success and there is quite a lot of variety on the agenda this year as well for me.  But this first weekend of the season is mostly a practice session to get re-acquainted with the gear and the way of shooting.  Brushing up the panning techniques, looking for the angles and getting the camera settings sorted out, means the first race is often a low on quality shots.  This years however, I must say it was not that bad and so I gladly redirect you to the photo gallery on my site. Go there directly by clicking here.



It was an action packed weekend that was plagued with a little bit too much technical difficulties to become really nail-bitingly exciting, but it was a very action-packed weekend nonetheless.  I saw a couple of race marshals almost get run-over when they towed an Aston Martin out of the gravel pit in the first corner and a accident in the chicane (which sadly I did not get a photograph of).  So I can’t complain, and more importantly, I’m looking forward to a very interesting season in both the BTCS and the Belcar Endurance championships.  Next race I hope to announce the first Day-at-the-races, so keep an eye on the Blog. 



More photos on Gordon's Finest Race Gallery on SmugMug