Harald Grohs

Harald Grohs

Nation:	Germany
DTM
First race:	Zolder I 1984
Last race:	Hockenheim II 1990
Teams (manufacturers)
1984 Vogelsang Valier • 1985 Obermeier ( BMW ) • 1986 HWRT ( Ford ) • 1987–1988 Vogelsang Valier • 1989 Faltz-Valier • 1990 Vogelsang Valier ( BMW )
statistics
Starts Victories Poles SR 59 (80) 7th 9 -
Podiums:	18th
Overall wins:	-
Points:	558

Harald "Nippel" Grohs (born January 28, 1944 in Essen ) is a German racing driver and team manager.

Racing career

Harald Grohs' career as a racing driver began in 1973 when he drove his first races in a Porsche 911 T. He started in ten races of the German Circuit Championship , of which he was able to win four races. After this unusual success, Grohs was allowed to contest two races in a BMW CSL for the Faltz team, both of which he won. Because of this extraordinary debut season, Heribert Küke, a freight forwarder and car restorer from Grohs' homeland, provided him with a Renault R5 and the matching transporter for the R5 trophy in 1974 . With six wins he came second in the overall standings. Jochen Neerpasch, then BMW race director, enabled him to make two guest starts in the American IMSA series . After the first race, an oral contract was signed for 1975. In 1975 he won his first race in the German racing championship at the Nürburgring . In the following race, however, his BMW overturned in the area of ​​the Hohe Acht on the Nordschleife , but Grohs was uninjured. At the end of the same year, he and Jody Scheckter won the Kyalami 9-hour race in South Africa . This was his first international success.

Grohs finished his first season in the German racing championship in 1977 in fifth place in Division 2 in a BMW 320 for the BMW Junior Team.

Harald Grohs in 1980 in the Porsche 935 during training for the 1000 km race on the Nürburgring

Grohs' BMW 635 CSi from 1984

Grohs' BMW 635 CSi from 1985

From 1984 Grohs started in the newly founded German Touring Car Championship . In a BMW 635 CSi from the Vogelsang Valier team, he won the first race in Zolder . Grohs also won the second race, but was disqualified after the race because the valve lift was too large, which ultimately cost him the title. Despite four wins this season, he had to admit defeat to the winless Volker Strycek and Olaf Manthey in the overall standings and finished third. Also in 1985 Grohs was third in the championship, this time with the Obermeier Racing team . In 1986 Grohs changed manufacturers and drove a Ford Sierra XR4 Ti from HWRT . The season turned into a disaster; Grohs only saw the checkered flag in his last race of the season and scored the only seven points with twelfth place. In 1987 Grohs came back to BMW and immediately won the first race of the season. With the Valier- M3 , he won two races and took fifth place in the championship. In 1988 Valier's M3 could only achieve results in the front midfield. The DTM was more and more dominated by the factories - private teams quickly lost ground. Grohs only made it to the podium in Hockenheim and at the AVUS . The sporting decline continued in the next two seasons, so that Grohs left the DTM after the 1990 season.

Grohs contested a total of more than 60 24-hour races . He is still active in motorsport. In May 2013 he took part in the 24-hour race at the Nürburgring with Friedrich von Bohlen and Markus Oestreich for the Schirra Motoring team with a Mini . At the end of the race the team was not classified.

In cooperation with BMW Motorsport, he took part in the 24-hour race at the Nürburgring for the 30th time in 2015, this time for the “Walkenhorst Motorsport powered by Dunlop” team in a BMW 235i Racing. Despite an overall turbulent course of the race, Grohs, together with his racing driver colleagues Bernd Ostmann , Christian Gebhardt and Victor Bouveng, achieved 42nd place in the overall standings and 1st place in their own SP 8T class (but with only three starters in this class).

Private

Harald Grohs has been married to Angelika Langner since 2004, the partner of Stefan Bellof, who died in an accident in 1985 .

statistics

Le Mans results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
1976	BMW Motorsport GmbH	BMW 3.0CSL	Sam Posey	Hughes de Fierlant	Rank 10
1979	Gelo Racing Sportswear	Porsche 935	John Fitzpatrick	Jean-Louis Lafosse	failure	Engine failure
1980	Vegla Racing Team	Porsche 935	Dieter Chimney	Götz von Tschirnhaus	Rank 8 and class win
1981	Vegla Racing Team	Porsche 935K2 / 80	Dieter Chimney	Götz von Tschirnhaus	Rank 10
1985	Claude Haldi	BMW M1	Altfrid Heger	Kurt Koenig	failure	Gearbox damage
1988	Porsche Kremer Racing	Porsche 962C	Kris Nissen	George Fouché	Rank 8
1989	Repsol Brun Motorsport	Porsche 962C	Akahiko Nakaya	Sarel van der Merwe	failure	alternator
1990	Obermeier Racing	Porsche 962C	Marc Duez	Jürgen Oppermann	failure	Gearbox damage
1993	Team Paduwa	Porsche Carrera 2 Cup	Didier Theys	Jean-Paul Libert	failure	Motor overheated
1998	CJ Motorsport	Porsche 911 GT2	John Morton	John Graham	failure	accident

Sebring results

year	team	vehicle	Teammate	Teammate	placement	Failure reason
1981	Andial Masters Racing	Porsche 935M16	Howard master	Rolf Stommelen	Rank 4

literature

• Arno Wester: Almost 70 and still hot . Portrait of Harald Grohs in: Motorsport Aktuell, issue 22/2013, p. 25.

Web links

• Official website of Grohs Motorsport

Individual evidence

1. ↑ dtm.com: Jim Clark Race, Hockenheimring Baden-Württemberg (D) ( Memento from October 30, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
2. ↑ Provisional result. (PDF; 145 kB) (No longer available online.) ADAC Nordrhein eV, May 20, 2013, archived from the original on June 12, 2013 ; Retrieved May 21, 2013 . 
3. ↑ bild.de: This is the widow of Stefan Bellof