– In seven DTM years, Gerd Ruch did not get beyond four points and a tenth place with his privately entered Ford Mustang – and yet the Berliner often received more applause than the stars of the time. But would a sensation have even been possible in 1993 at the Avus in Berlin, where the Mustang always ran well because of the long straights with its 550-hp engine?
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“I once had such a highlight,” says Gerd Ruch. “We only finished the car for the Avus race very late. We even set up the tent on the Avus. We towed the car there on the road, straight to practice. And I would have had the chance to take pole position for the qualifying race. And then I ran out of fuel.”
In fact, it is documented that Ruch ran out of fuel during timed practice at the penultimate DTM weekend on the city highway circuit in 1993. However, at that time, the format no longer consisted of a qualifying race and a main race, but of two heats.
Night shift until five in the morning became a trap
But why did Ruch run out of fuel back then? “Because we all worked until five in the morning and no one refueled,” remembers the hobby racer of the time.
While the top DTM teams spared no expense at the beginning of the Class 1 era and Formula 1 technology was sometimes used, Ruch, who also had a building services company, was in action with a mini-team.
“I worked on the car until Thursday evening, loaded the car, drove to the race track and then drove,” he explains what his race weekends looked like back then. “Of course there was little sleep. We still had the company. For us, it was important to keep up and not look like total fools.”
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Would pole really have been possible?
Could Ruch really have sensationally taken pole at the Avus back then? The then 39-year-old finished 16th in timed practice with his Mustang and its brutal sound – with a lap time of 58.32 seconds. That was great bad luck, because the top 15 at the time advanced to a single-lap qualifying session in which they fought for pole.
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It is difficult to estimate how much faster Ruch could have gone if he hadn’t rolled to a stop. The fact that he was in strong form at the time is shown by the fact that his best time from timed practice was 1.48 seconds off the pole of Alfa Romeo driver Alessandro Nannini.
With this time, he would have finished tenth in the single-lap qualifying – right behind “Mr. DTM” Bernd Schneider. In the first heat, Ruch finished eleventh; in the second, he retired with engine failure.
Already in 1990, a Mustang sensation was in the air at the Avus
Ruch had already proven what was possible with the Mustang at the Avus in 1990: back then, after starting sixth in the qualifying race, he even took the lead for three laps because he left the competition no chance on the straights with the enormous engine power of the US car.
The only problem: he had to brake much earlier than his rivals before the hairpin because his car was not yet equipped with the Bosch ABS system at the time. In the end, Ruch came away empty-handed because he was first pushed and then collided with Bigazzi BMW driver Steve Soper. In the main race, Ruch was also already in sixth place before the water pump failed.
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