Geering: The time is ripe for change 🎥
VICTORY OVER THE NATIONALS At the Swiss slalom finals in Ambri, Marco Geering, competing with REG license, beat all national class opponents in Group IS. A promise for the future. The onboard video of Marco Geering shows his winning run at the Ambri airfield from the driver's perspective. Most of the time, drivers with a regional annual license are overshadowed by those competing for points towards the [...]
Marco Geering's onboard video shows his victory run at Ambri airfield from the driver's perspective.
Most of the time, drivers with a regional annual license are overshadowed by their colleagues competing for points in the Swiss championship. At the mountain races, the regionals get their own categories. Sometimes their program is already over on Saturday with their own award ceremony, otherwise they usually form the field 1.
Same standard for slaloms
Unlike on the mountain, riders with REG licenses may also score points in slaloms for the Swiss championship. Therefore, there is no subdivision, but direct comparisons can be made with the NAT and INT licensees under always the same conditions. And this is where Marco Geering particularly put himself in the limelight on October 6.
At the slalom finals in Ambri, the 29-year-old computer scientist from Watt ZH not only won the IS-2000 class, which is always strongly contested, but also the overall classification of the Interswiss (IS) group. And he did this with an Opel Kadett C GT/E with an 8-valve engine (approx. 220 to 230 hp) and 4-speed H-shift.
Marco Geering: "When I was ahead in class after the practice runs, it was already a surprise. Of course, the goal was to keep this position, but I thought it was unrealistic. Rather a place between 3 and 5. When I was second after the first run with two or three mistakes, I put all my cards on the table after that and didn't spare the material in the last race of the season either."
REG day winners in Hemberg and Reitnau
The fast upstart already caught the eye a few months earlier. In Hemberg, he conquered the day's victory at the Regional. With his overall time, it would have been enough for third place in the IS-2000 at the Nationals behind fellow Opel 16V drivers Ochsner, Niederberger and Tschirky.
His performance in Reitnau was even more impressive, where only IS runner-up Jürg Ochnser was faster in the two-liter addition of the two running times. If you compare Geering's times with Group E1, he would even have placed second there twice in the class up to 2000 cubic meters behind Danny Krieg in the Audi A4 STW.
Great duel with Grispino
On the Gurnigel, Geering had a great duel with Claudio Grispino in the REG race on Saturday. Grispino drives his Renault 5 Williams only in hill climbs and has been one of the fastest regional drivers for years. With a sensational second run "Chräsi" took the victory with his optimal 16V front-wheel drive car by a few hundredths, but this did not affect Geering's performance.
Postponed plans
The first national victory a month later in Ambri was then his greatest success to date. Motivated by his fast times on the mountain, however, the decision to move up to the nationals in 2020 was already made beforehand.
Marco Geering: "Actually, I already wanted to race nationally in 2019. But I knew that I would be on vacation in Les Rangiers and Oberhallau. That's why I added another regional season."
The Hallauers send their regards
2019 was Geering's fourth REG season with the Opel Kadett driven before him by Hansjörg Baumann from Hallau. The chassis was designed by Fritz Erb, and the ten-time slalom champion also had a lot of other know-how. The car is not the most beautiful on the race track and you can see its age, but it is absolutely top.
Marco Geering: "I got to grips with it amazingly quickly in 2016 and have grown with the car. At the beginning, I was happy about class wins, but now it's about six to ten daily victories. Now I'm amazed myself at where that puts me compared to the nationals. It's nice to be able to keep up with an eight-valve bike. But I didn't think you could win with it against the 16-valvers."
See you next year
After the rookie has delivered the proof at the end of the season, one can be curious if and how Marco Geering will succeed in confirming in the national group Interswiss in 2020. Fresh blood is good for every championship.
equipebernoise.ch/ebfiles/pdf-files/ambri2019/listen/Off_Race_Field_8.pdf
