Saturday in Zolder Part 2 - Victory for Albacete in Race 1, severe crash at the start

21. September 2013Zolder - Till the start of the first race the sun peeked through the clouds now and again. At no time did the temperature exceed 18°C, but it did at least stay dry. But it got really hot for many of the spectators at the rolling start. With polesitter Kiss in the lead, the trucks thundered in a phalanx towards the first left-hand corner — the first precarious corner, many reckoned. But even as they crossed the start/finish line, Mäkinen and Bösiger collided and the Swiss’s spinning Renault smashed into the retaining wall of the grandstand, collecting Major’s MAN, which climbed almost a meter, swung around, crashing into the wall around 100 metres ahead of Bösiger and rebounded. The disintegrating MAN skidding along the track sideways towards the corner (see the video on our Facebook page).
The pileup collected five more of the accelerating trucks, and the start straight now resembled a scrapyard. The almost one-metre-thick retaining wall was breached in several places. Bösiger’s Renault and the MAN of Major looked like complete writeoffs, although all the other trucks involved in the accident managed to carry on. Everyone feared the worst, but Bösiger soon wriggled out of his wreck unhurt, while Major jumped out instantly and appeared to hobble slightly, having suffered an injury on his foot.
Then began a long period of recovery and salvage. The damaged portions of the wall were patched up while the wrecks of the Renault and the MAN were being recovered from the track. It took a full hour before the race could be restarted, in the original order but with a somewhat thinned-out field. This time the start took place in single file, in yellow flag conditions. The start/finish straight remained a yellow-flag zone for the rest of the race, and that left only very few places on the track where one could really attack.
Even so, Kiss lost his lead to Albacete in the early laps, and even Hahn and Oestreich were able to push past the Hungarian. Hahn followed close on the Spaniard’s heels, while Oestreich and Kiss fought a razor’s-edge battle a short distance behind. Somewhere towards the middle of the race Hahn managed to get alongside Albacete at the end of the back straight, but braked too late going into the corner, cutting across the grass and rejoining the track alongside Albacete, then taking the lead in the descent following a short rise. He stayed ahead till the flag, but his apparent victory wasn’t going to be his to enjoy. His action in the chicane earned the German a retroactive drive-through penalty, which added 30 seconds to his elapsed time, dropping him to fifth in the finishing order. Kiss meanwhile attacked the MAN of Oestreich once more in the final curve, forcing the German onto the grass and snatching his second place. Lacko finished fourth, ahead of the demoted Hahn. The rest of the points finishers were Vojtíšek, Janiec, and Reinert (who with his eighth place secured pole for the second race), Blaise, and Robineau. Truck Sport Lutz Bernau (Albacete / Oestreich) was the top team, ahead of OXXO Energy Truck Race Team (Kiss / Major) and MKR Technology (Lacko / Bösiger).