Happy New Year from moslerlover

It's 2010 and we're back. Last year was a difficult one; all those problems are now behind us and we're looking forward to a racing start into the new year.

Throughout January, we'll be bringing you all those race reports missing from last season - bear with us, there's a huge backlog to clear. Then we'll be looking into our crystal ball to see what the new season holds for the Mosler marque, one that's gone truely global in the last year.

Many thanks to all the contributors of race data and photography in 2009 - we'll aim to use as much as we can as we play catch up and look forward to meeting up with you all in 2010.

Moslers Excluded from British GT

Here's the story as reported to Daily Sports Car by Martin Short, Mosler Europe: I'm too incandescent at the moment to make any further comment...

In response to a series of protests from David and Godfrey Jones and their Preci Spark Ascari team, managed by Mike Jordan, the MSA's National Court has ruled that the Mosler MT900 GT3 is no longer eligible to race in the GT3 Class of the British GT Championship.

In addition, results and points scored by Mosler drivers Dan Brown and Martin Short, including and post Snetterton (the time of the final Jones protest), have been wiped from the record, so Rollcentre's Dan Brown is no longer in contention for the British GT3 title (until this ruling he had scored 60 points, just nine behind the Preci Spark drivers).

Henceforth, unless the British GT Regulations are re written, Mosler GT3's can only race in the Invitation Class of the Championship. This option is currently unworkable for Martin Short and his Rollcentre team.

The National Court's findings include this sentence: "It is, however, the view of this court that the problems and the difficulties, especially for the Mosler, would seem to have been caused in large part by the actions of SRO in apparently knowingly permitting the Mosler to compete in a Class for which it was patently ineligible."

Moslers were entitled to compete in the Belgian GT Championship because a National GT3 Class was specifically included in that country's series, but no such class was ever specifically written into British GTs where, in the Court's words, "the Mosler was permitted by SRO to run within the Homologated GT3 Class".

Without FIA Homologation, it follows, according to the National Court decision that the Mosler cannot compete in the GT3 Class, despite the go-ahead from SRO that it could. The problem is that SRO neglected to formally add the words 'and National' to the Rule "FIA and National GT3 Cars are eligible within the Championship Regulations" (although other sentences allowing the SRO to accept any car within British GT existed).

This indicates a conflict between the SRO and the overall management of the British GT Series, the MSA. SRO had given written and verbal affirmation that National GT3 cars were eligible, in fact , re-inforcing this well established policy, accepted the Mosler entry both before the season began, and at each subsequent race event. Rollcentre is hopeful that SRO and the MSA will come together and recognise the omission of the words 'and National' was indeed a technical oversight that they can immediately correct, and not a matter of ongoing policy.

Meanwhile, the issue over those two inadvertently omitted words (and National) in the formal regulations have proved costly for the SRO, the Championship, Rollcentre Racing and Mosler Europe and most importantly and tragically, Dan Brown.

Ironically, the Jones brothers are racing a car with a current performance advantage due to another technicality. The Ascari was originally only entitled to run in FIA GT3 several years ago because there were relatively few marques available in the European Championship's first year and without any Ascari entries in Europe this year, the Ascari couldn't be 'performance equalised' for FIA GT3, the result of which has been that all Balance of Performance measures accrued for the Ascari over the last 3 years have been dismissed. Consequently, the Preci Spark entry has been running without last year's 80 kg of ballast, and without the higher 20mm ride height Equalisation measure.

Martin Short: " We took part in the British GT this year to compete in the GT3 class against other high performance and competitive race teams for the National British GT Title, something the Invitation class does not offer. The fact that this unfortunate, semantic incongruity has now befallen us, with three quarters of the Championship gone by, and with the best young driver in BGT since Jonny Cocker taken out of the title running simply beggars belief.

"Hopefully, the British GT Championship will return to a better state next year. In the meantime, we will run where we are welcomed.

"As a postscript, I find it incredible that the MSA approves the regulations, and then decides they are wrong. Moslers were running under these specific regulations three years ago."

Dutch Supercar Challenge: Spa Euroraces 28.06.09

Back to Spa again for another round of the Dutch Supercar Challenge. The usual suspects were up at the front in qualifying; Cor Euser stuck the Marcos Mantis onto pole, with the Moslers of Martin Short and Berry van Elk in third and fourth. One notable non-starter was Andrew Beaumont in the Topcats Mosler.


Race one saw Euser make a strong start, yet Short was relentless in tracking the Marcos around the famous Ardennes circuit. Having dispatched Pastorelli for second place, Short passed Euser as the latter's battery began to fail. When van der Voort's Beemer crashed out, the safety car was deployed and the field took a mad dash into the pits under yellow flags.


With his now-customary success penalty, Short re-entered the race back in seventh place but began a relentless climb back through the field. Passing the ETEC Viper at the bus stop chicane put Mosler Europe into the lead; the race was red-flagged with five minutes to go with Short at the front. Another convincing win, bolstered by a solid drive by Berry van Elk who brought the V Max Mosler home in third.


Race two saw an uncharacteristic tactical error by Short. With an early safety car out to clear wreckage, he hoped to pit whilst the field crawled around. But the safety car came in too early for him; when he emerged from the pits the pack were back to full speed and not even a flying Mosler could catch them.


van Elk was well placed in fourth place as the race progressed. Then, a real turnaround; the two leading cars were called in to take drive-through penalties. Now, Berry had a scent of victory. Passing Werkmann's Opel V8 Star into Les Combes on the penultimate lap, the young Mosler driver pushed on to take the chequered flag - his maiden win in the Dutch Supercar Challenge. Martin Short came home in tenth, with Andrew Beaumont and Pat Gormley impressing in eighth.





The Moslers have an enviable track record around Spa and today proved to be no exception. Congratulations to Berry van Elk for what we hope will be the first of many Mosler wins.



Photos (c) www.supercarchallenge.nl where video highlights are available too

DSMEC: 500km of Zolder 14.06.09

Sadly, the MeXT Mosler didn't race in the 500kn; it was still undergoing repairs from its huge shunt at Zolder back in April.

Dutch Supercar Challenge; Zandvoort 14.06.09

Round three of the Dutch Supercar Challenge took place around the dunes of Zandvoort in North Holland.

Martin Short, fresh from export duties in Malaysia, hotfooted it from Schiphol to the circuit in time for qualifying. His old adversary, Cor Euser, took the Marcos onto pole by a tenth of a second from Short's Mosler. Berry van Elk qualified in sixth.



Engine problems seemed to bedevil Short's season, though; his crew were hard at work on the car after qualifying in order to make the grid for race one. But whatever magic dust they sprinkle around does the trick - Short got the drop on Euser (not for the first time this season) and took the lead on lap one. The Marcos looked consistently quicker, though, and Euser sprang back into the lead on lap six.



Safety cars and pitstops then shook up the race rhythm. Berry van Elk had been running well before losing it on a hard curb and beaching his Mosler. I speak little Dutch, so I guess at the end of this clip he's saying something like 'gosh, that's unfortunate, I was driving really rather well up until I made that silly mistake".




With the safety car out and the pitstop window about to open, chaos ensued. Drivers were slowing up to enter and exit the pits at the most opportune moment as the safety car snaked the field around. Short found himself in the lead after a second safety car outing, even though he'd had 55 seconds success penalty added to his stop. The lead was short lived, though; having stopped just before the pitlane entrance when waiting for it to open, he was given a drive-through penalty. Short did his best to make up time with a clear track ahead of him before taking the drive-through and emerging in third behind Euser and the leading Porsche 997.




Short closed down Euser but couldn't pass, crossing the line behind in third as the Porsche of van de Laar and Bleekemolen took the win. Later, Euser would be stung with a thirty-second penalty for a slow getaway from the pitlane so Short was elevated into second.

Race two saw less incident but a fantastic surge from Berry van Elk. Starting at the back of the grid after his off in race one, Berry had the whole field ahead of him to carve through. Euser and Short fought all race through, the Marcos taking the win. Short suffered a fuel pump failure that led the Mosler and Marcos to bump briefly; Short kept on running but lost valuable time whilst starting the reserve pump. With sixty seconds of success penalty on his pitstop as well, the Mosler Europe car still fought on and came home in a creditable fourth place.



Star Mosler performer of the day, however, has to be Berry van Elk. From the rear of the grid, he scythed through the field and took a well-deserved podium position by finishing third.



Martin Short leads Cor Euser in the championship by 14 points as the season continues in Spa at the end of June.

Photos (c)Roel Louwers and Jacqueline Pelsmacker at www.supercarchallenge.nl

As always, highlights of the race can be seen on the Dutch Supercar Challenge website

British GT: Rockingham 31.05.09

The Momo Mosler continued to impress around the Rock.

The invitational Barwell Motorsport Ginetta G50Z set the pace in race one. Dan Brown kept the Mosler in contention and took the lead as the Ginetta pitted, but any chance of victory evaporated when Dan span at the hairpin. Gregor Fiskin brought the car home in fifth (fourth in GT3) with the Ginetta taking the win with the Rosso Verde Ferrari finishing second to win the GT3 class.

Race two saw Gregor keep tabs with the lead group despite qualifying ninth, aided by the field bunching under the safety car after the MTECH Ferrari turned to flame.

With five laps to go, the Preci-Spark Ascari led the field round by a gnat's chaff from the Mosler and the impressive invitational Ginetta. The G50Z put a move on the Mosler and then out-breaked the Ascari three laps later to take the lead. More drama followed, as Brown took the Ascari on the final lap to claim the GT3 honours behind the Ginetta.

That victory put Dan Brown to the top of the driver's championship and Gregor into sixth.

Update issues

My steam-driven broadband connection is playing silly beggars - I can barely hold a signal long enough to get this published, nevermind upload video - so updates from Britcar/DSC Rockingham et al will be on their way when normal service is resumed.