Nurburgring, Germany ,

Team Mirage Australia for the 2nd year succeeded at the demanding Nurburgring 24hr race on May 7-8 2005

The 9 drivers & 5 crew all from Australia made a return with a new level of confidence.

Team owner and lead driver Mal Rose summed up the experience as UNREAL. He was teamed with co drivers Kevin Burton & Anthony Robson to finish “ again “ 2nd in class, A2 and 61st outright from 213 starters.

Mal , Kevin & Anthony qualified 4th in class on a treaded Toyo 888 performance radial against a field of international racecars. ( all on slick race tyres ).

The Mirage Cup Car 146 from the start was in contention and by the 2nd hour was leading their class.

Throughout the day & night the race was hotly contested by a Factory supported Suzuki Ignis with 3 Japanese drivers & 1 German

Mal & his team led the class for 20 hours until a small electrical misfire caused them to loose the lead.

Then the drama of the race unfolded when the car stopped within sight of the finish.

Nurburgring being a 25 km racetrack meant the ONLY way to get the car to finish was with the help from the Team Mirage car 147 of Peter Leemhuis, Adam Wallis & Tony Alford .

The driver in car 146 driven then by Kevin Burton was assisted by car 147 driven by Tony Alford by pushing it almost 10 km up & down the mountain before it fired up for a flying finish.

The team burst into euphoria as the team again brought home All the cars for a 100% finishing record.

The team was also for this year running a 3rd car 148, driven by Colin Osborne , Alan Shephard & Rob Rubis.

ALL Team Mirage Australia drivers have already planned a return trip to try to master the very fast & sometimes dangerous track in the Eiffel Mountains of South East Germany.

Year 2006 will become the teams main focus to win the A2 Class ( for 1600cc ) as the car has now finished 2nd in class twice.

We want to win our class in 2006 before we start our next project; we have to have a win before too long. Said an enthusiastic Rose!

This is one of the most demanding tracks in the world ( 4 times longer than Bathurst ) and a heap faster. Some of the cars are clocking over 355 kph on 3 parts of the track!

OUR Mitsubishi Mirage Cup Cars are now the talk of Germany as our small team of Aussies again looked at upsetting the local & International teams.

The Mal Rose Racing team was again supported by Toyo Tyres, Castrol, Rehydr8 , Five Star CV Reconditioning, Total Engine Services, XenonOz, Reliance, & Caldwell Auto Body Repairs.

END