Mechanical problems and shunt for the Giallo Corse Alfa 156 in the rain-soaked Belcar 10 Hours of Zolder combined to leave the Belgian team fighting hard race-long to recover from the setbacks.

Mechanical problems at the start, together with a mid-race shunt, for the Giallo Corse Alfa 156 in last weekend’s rain-soaked Belcar Endurance Cup 10 Hours of Zolder combined to leave the Belgian team fighting race-long to recover from the setbacks. The all-Belgian driving line-up of Peter Bens, Franky Boulat and Jef Verhulst, along with the team’s hard working pit crew, coped admirably with all the dramas to bring the car to the finish line 4th in class after a final hour of racing which had seen the Alfa 156 amongst the fastest cars out on track in the treacherous conditions, unlapping itself from much bigger and faster rivals.

The Belcar Endurance Cup this year has comprised of 6 rounds, 5 held at Zolder and one at Spa-Francorchamps. The ‘blue riband’ event of the well-subscribed series is the Zolder 10 Hours (11 Nov). The event attracts a huge, professional entry and for last weekend’s season-closing 10 hour edition it would be no different as the former 3.977 km long Grand Prix track reverberated to the scream of racing engines with several Belcar Original and Btcs teams adding this race to their season. The classic Zolder circuit has been updated recently and this year has hosted a round of the ChampCar series as well as the FIA GT Championship.

The 55 strong grid last Sunday would comprise of a swage of top racing machines from the fearsome Porsche 996 GT3, through a field crammed with potent cars such the Ultima GTR, Audi TT, Renault Clio, BMW Z4 and SEAT Leon Cupra. Ably upholding Italian honours though would be the race-proved Giallo Corse Alfa 156.

Giallo Corse was set up by Peter Bens and Franky Boulat. The team’s name is pun on Geel, explains Peter: “Giallo is Italian for yellow, while the Flemish for yellow is geel; we were all born in Geel, and most of us still live there. I’m from Geel and live there, Franky too, Jef lives in Herentals but is a true Geel native and his office is still in Geel, Jan lives in Brasschaat but is another Geel native, team PJA co-founder Alfons ”Fonny” Mathieu was also born and lives in Geel. The team is based in Geel and kept alive through the enthusiasm of volunteers among which are Kristof De Vries & Niels Helsen who work at Belgium's leading Alfa Romeo dealership Buga Ital Auto.

The team’s Alfa 156 2.5 V6 has a decade long racing career – being the first Alfa 156 ever to be prepared for the track, back in April ’98 (with a 2.0 TS 4 cylinder engine of that era). However, the glorious Alfa 156 has already taken its rightful place in history as one of Alfa Romeo’s finest ever touring car racers - with a string of national and international titles under its belt. And just as N.Technology have kept the stunning machine highly competitive into its twilight years to go into this weekend’s final round of the FIA World Touring Car Championship at Macau with lead driver James Thompson firmly embroiled in the title showdown – the expertise of Giallo Corse’s engineers has kept their own familiar red, white and green machine competitive on the Belgian racing scene. Now the machine features a 2.5 V6 engine.

New to the driving strength this year – well almost – is Franky Boulat, the popular triple Belgian-Flemish Vlaamse AutoSportliga (VAS) National Rally Champion (2003, 2004, 2005 and 2006). Demonstrating his latent ability on the rougher surfaces his three titles came at the wheel of a GpA Opel Kadett 2.0Gsi, when he beat several rivals piloting genuine four-wheel-drive WRC machinery. Last year Boulat drove the new GpA Opel Astra 2.0 and was once again in winning form. This year though Franky has swapped the gravel and forests for a whole new challenge – on the race track - driving Giallo Corse’s Alfa 156 in the Belcar series. The rapid rallyman was able to count on some experience driving Italian machinery on track as he made his circuit racing debut in 2005 guesting in the Giallo Corse Alfa 156 during two rounds of the Zolder Touring Car Cup. He also drove the Toöra VIP Maserati GranSport in the Spa round of the Maserati Trofeo alongside veteran English racer Tony Dron. The step up from a 240 bhp front wheel drive rally car to a 400 bhp rear wheel drive racing car with paddle-shift gears was a huge one, especially as his only experience at the Spa circuit was at the wheel of an Alfa Romeo road car in 2001 when piloting VIPs around the circuit. However he acquitted himself well and last year again piloted the VIP car (this time with Marc Goossens alongside) in the Maserati Trofeo’s Belgian round.

Things went very well for Giallo Corse in qualifying at Zolder last weekend, which took place in the pouring rain. The team took no risks in the treacherous conditions and especially with a 10 hour race looming; Franky posted a 2.19, while Jef turned in a 2.20, Peter did 2.16 leaving the team in a strong 25th overall and 3rd in Class E3.

Jef was chosen to start the race, with rain tyres fitted as the lights went green and on what was still very wet track. However disaster struck almost immediately as after only 5 laps the car came into the pits because both fuel pumps (including back-up spare) had failed. “It took us 1 hour to get the car running again with a fuel pump from an Opel,” said Peter. “We sent Jef out again on rain tyres and called him in after 2h20min. We then sent Franky out on slicks and soon the laptimes went down to 1.59.”

One hour later Franky came in for fuel and Jef took over again; he was supposed to run until 17.30h but at 17h he came in having gone off at Villeneuve, damaging the power-steering, headlights and much of the front end, necessitating a lot of hard work by the mechanics with Flip, Glenn and Luc adding their rally mechanic skills (working fast in all kinds of weather) to Kristof and Niels’. An hour later, at 18h, Peter took the car back onto the track with fading power steering and the fuel pump no longer able to operate at over 5,200rpm, using slicks on a damp track. “Nevertheless I lapped up to 2.04 and started our recovery in the dark,” says Peter. “At 19 hours the power-steering vanished again completely and I returned to the pits; we disconnected the power-steering pump and left the wheel to Franky who we sent out on rain tyres again.”

In the rain Franky missed the power-steering less and the 1,000 rpm loss (5,000 instead of 6,000) was a lesser handicap as the quadruple rally champion maintained the Alfa 156’s distance to fifth placed runner in class, the Audi TT to, 1 minute. Franky then came in, leaving Peter behind the wheel for the final 1.5 hours. “I went out with 1.44 behind the Audi TT,” says Peter, “in 10 laps I recovered the gap to it and after a fierce battle over 2 laps - outbraking him, outside, inside on and off the track, but he recovered the position every time on the straight - until I finally broke his defence and he let go. I kept attacking until the end and retook 5 laps on the numbers 1 up to 3 in our class but they were simply out of reach. Meanwhile the TT was now 4 laps down on us. The top 5 overall - all Porsche Supercup cars running with triple our horsepower - had even lost 2 laps to our Alfa 156 in the closing hours.

“If we hadn’t had those two major problems we could have won our class and reached top 15 in general classification; however we were classified 30th overall and 4th in class,” says Peter. “However the 10-hour race proved that the Alfa 156 is still a great car, able to compete head on with its rivals, and the race certainly showed that we now have to study participating in the new DSM endurance cup in 2008."