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Friday at Smolenskring

Friday at Smolenskring

27. July 2012Smolenskring - It is hot at Smolenksring the race track around 300 km west of Moskow, even though the weather forecast predicted the total opposite a few days ago for the 7th race of the FIA European Truck Racing Championship.
The forecast says rain for Sunday, which means that the mosquito infestation could worsen. Insect repellents are currently in high demand.
But the truck racers were more unhappy about the problems that occurred when crossing the border into Russia, than about the mosquitoes. It took most of the teams 24 hours or more to cross the border. The problem was not that the Russian border patrol had been extremely bureaucratic again, but the Latvians gave the truck racers a hard time, when they wanted to leave the EU.
Apparently not every officer knew that there was a special permission. When they changed shifts the whole problem got solved. Until the last truck racers were able to cross the border into Russia, it was Wednesday evening – by that time they had planned to be at the Smolenskring. The 450 km long trip in the convoy still lay ahead of them including roads that asked a lot of the drivers. At Thursday around 5 am the convoy arrived at the race track.
In the course of the day the tired teams started putting up their tents, because the races for the free practices were on the agenda for this Friday. Some items on the agenda concerning the events this weekend changed significantly, but for the truck racers everything remained the same.
It all started on time at 3 pm. Frankie Vojtisek (CZE) in his MAN was the last one of the 14 trucks to enter the race track.
Antonio Albacete (ESP) in his red MAN breaked the mark of 1:52 minutes in both practices. His MAN teammate Jochen Hahn (GER), both Renault drivers Markus Bösiger (SUI) and Adam Lacko (CZE), the Czech David Vrsecky (Buggyra-Freightliner) as well as Renault-driver Markus Oestreich (GER) – the top group of six in this Championship, even if in a different order in this case – followed shortly after. The other drivers followed with greater distances. It will get extremely exciting tomorrow, when the decision over the first starting position will be made.

Impressions:

Friday at Smolenskring
Friday at Smolenskring