15th Oschersleben Opel Meet 2010

Record slashed again!

The best meet of all times: 67 400 fans came

What should we say and write, when at the sight of the amazing scenes in this year's Opel Meet in the Oschersleben Motorsport Arena words simply fail us? An amazing 4 days (for some it was a few more…) are behind us and we can mutually clap each other on the back and congratulate ourselves for this meet that, as expected, has broken all records! That's why it justifiably goes into the history books as the best meet of all times! Our thanks to everyone who came and made it what it is: the biggest Opel Meet in the world! Between 3rd and 6th June we counted an incredible 67 400 Opel fans with 19 900 vehicles! You all celebrated one enormous, four-day-long Opel party, and you really let rip! With the sun beating down and hot summer temperatures there was nothing that could have spoiled our fun. Punctually on the first day of the event the anticyclone 'Urs' took the helm and banished cool temperatures and rain. As early as Sunday, an incredible five days before the event started, the really hard-core descended on the Motorsport Arena - and this in the rain!

Sven Glöckner and his ambitious team have put together another record meet with a full calendar of events, delivering a made-to-measure entertainment marathon. Tuning competitions like Show & Shine, the Hella Light Contest, and the Burnout and Donut competitions made you cheer, shout, and go crazy. In the Show & Shine competition alone 209 vehicular beauties presented themselves to the judges in various categories, who had to decide how to award over 80 cups. Over 50 traders turned the paddock and the pits into a shopping mile, and the Public Race on the Arena track was once more a huge hit.

But the real 'hits' arrived in Oschersleben on Friday afternoon. Two incredibly nice scrap merchants were the stars of the meet: Manni and Uwe Ludolf kept a fan programme on the go that didn't leave them a second to catch their breath. "We don't want a rest, we want fun", Manni kept on pointing out. A break? No Sir! Everywhere and at all times they were to be found smiling, embracing, schmoozing, being photographed and signing autographs. Almost as an aside, the crazy, friendly guys opened the Burnout and Donut competitions and crowned "Miss Opel 2010". Melanie Palmer from Lichtenstein in Saxony was the lucky lady. The 24 year-old trainee social pedagogue beat nine other contestants and will follow an exciting programme over the next 12 months. Look forward to seeing Melanie at the Essen Motor Show 2010, and of course in the Opel Meet Calendar 2011.

The first "Superfan" in the history of the Opel Meet now also has a face and a name. Klaus Heinritz, alias OPC-Klausi, convinced the Opel Meet organisers, for he had lots to offer. For the last 11 years the convinced Opelian from Altdorf near Nuremberg has not missed a single meet at the Motorsport Arena. He can show all the stickers, programmes, and entry tickets - an impressive collection! OPC-Klausi was also the person who suggested this contest in the first place in December 2008 - Sven Glöckner promised him at the time that he would come up with something to bring this great idea to life. Now, at the 15th edition of the Opel Meet, the time was ripe to make good that promise. In the last 16 years Klaus has visited an incredible 150 Opel Meets! His hyper-precise mileage count (Klaus is not just an Opel freak, he's mad about statistics too!) shows that he has travelled 6777 km to Oschersleben alone. In total, all Opel Meets together were worth an incredible 52 834 kilometres to him! Klaus has driven four different cars to the Magdeburg Börde area, and as soon as the date was fixed he always immediately applied for a week's holiday. "Even two broken legs can't stop me", he said, revealing his motto.

As for entertainment, the 1/8-mile sprint was once again one of the highlights. With 157 starters the starting places were almost completely booked up, and everybody gave the crowds at the start/finish stand a fantastic show. The battle against the merciless starting lights was also a man-on-man duel. With the opponent always in the corner of your eye and your gaze fixed on the lights - over the distance of 201.17 metres you had to be able to react quickly and nimbly master the play between accelerator and clutch. Running in parallel to the final stages of the 1/8-mile, the pros from the Falken International Drift Series (IDS) showed you what daring corners are all about. Riding breathtakingly on two wheels, the drifters took the measure of the triple and made an impressive show of how to combine strength and finesse in harmony. The twin battle was, as it were, the two-wheeler pendant to the 1/8-mile sprint, and screeching tyres and plentiful smoke were the favoured entertainment factors in these duels. The IDS team also took over the management of the Drift Challenge for the first time. Seven Opel fans drove their four-wheeled vehicles round the Hasseröder bend, and if you had thousands of spectators shouting "encore, encore" at you, you too would quickly get goose-bumps all over your body.

There were lots of goose-bumps and a few wet eyes at the symbolic close and most emotional moment of the meet. On Saturday evening the pyrotechnicians bathed the sky over Oschersleben in an incredible display of colour, and chose the right music to ensure there was a real buzz about the fireworks. Across the site the warning lights of almost 20 000 vehicles were turned on, and after the last firework had died in the sky a minute-long concert of horns sounded around the arena. Those were real emotions.

10th Vintage Opel Meet shows off the Rüsselheim tradition

The Vintage Opel Meet celebrated a round anniversary this year in Oschersleben. 42 lovers of old Opel vehicles had come in order to show off their well cared-for jewels, which were highly polished for the big event. "We have always made a separate exhibition space available to you in the paddock", says Sven Glöckner. "The historic ones are just so important because they take us right back to Opel's beginnings". The vintage Opelz travelled a lengthy circuit through the Börde region on Saturday afternoon. The traditional Bördeland rally this year passed through the riding and show-jumping competition in Warsleben, where the elderly convoy showed off to the spectators. The oldest vehicle at the Vintage Opel Meet was incidentally an Opel bicycle, built 1935.

The 15th Oschersleben Opel Meet in overview: