National Truck Racing Series — New Race Series in India
31. January 2014Last week we published this year’s calendar containing all events of interest to truckrace fans — at least as many as we were aware of. That list includes not only the races of the FIA European Truck Racing Championship, but also the national series, trade show dates, etc.
The entry “T1 Prima Truck Racing Championship India, Greater Noida” for 23 March attracted special attention. Our Indian colleague Eliot Lobo, who for a year has been responsible for the English section of the Web portal truckracing.de / truckrace.info, informed us on 23 January that Tata Motors, India’s largest truck manufacturer, had announced that country’s first truck racing series the day before in New Delhi.
According to the press release, the first race in the new T1 series, sanctioned by the FIA and to be run under the aegis of the Indian motorsport federation FMSCI, will take place on the Formula 1 circuit in Greater Noida near Delhi. There will be six teams racing 12 Tata Prima 4038.S trucks with 370hp Cummins ISLe engines.
Apart from the power figure, the trucks otherwise correspond to the guidelines of the British Truck Racing Association (BTRA). The release made no mention of other rounds, although there are certain to be more. A long overdue start in this country, which really deserves its own national championship — and a round of the ETRC as well, as FIA coordinator Fabien Calvet has for some years sought to establish.
The crazily popular truckrace series in Brazil is traditionally the first to kick off, this year on 16 March. The Fórmula Truck series, like the FIA ETRC, consists of 10 race weekends — but the calendar is not so tightly packed; the races are spaced out in monthly intervals till December.
The British truck racers will meet on eight weekends in their national championship. At one of them they will be racing as part of an FIA event — the Truck Grand Prix on the Nürburgring. In any case, the English racers will only be able to win points towards their championship in the races for the Mittelrhein Cup. For racers who otherwise want to chase points in both, the FIA and British championships, the weekend in the Eifel is going to be strenuous indeed; but that one can be successful in this endeavour was demonstrated to us last year by René Reinert. The transporter from Lausitz not only collected points in the FIA races, but also won both races for the Mittelrhein Cup, albeit “just for fun”, because there were no points for him to win towards the BTRA championship.
FIA racers have absolutely no chance in the French national championship this season. Steffi Halm, we all know, took the French title last year and the year before for the Lion team; in the coming season the young German will concentrate on the FIA ETRC alone. Two events – Nogaro and Le Mans – in the French calendar have long been associated with the respective FIA rounds, and the programme always made it impossible for a racer to compete in races of both series. In 2014, the three remaining race weekends in the Coupe de France Camions also coincide exactly with ETRC dates, only on different circuits.
Impressions:
