Saturday in Most Part 2 - Kiss wins first race

30. August 2014Most - The first race of the day here in Most will certainly go down as one of the oddest we’ve seen — run over only seven of the 11 regulation laps following a delay in the schedule of almost one hour, the racing itself was uneventful; it was the starts, three of them in all. Kiss cleanly took the lead each time, though the real action unfolded just behind the leaders and down in midfield.
Blame the chicane immediately after the start, a 90° right-hand bend followed by another 90° bend left, a tight squeeze for the 2.5m-wide race trucks. Collisions are as good as unavoidable here — truck racing is, after all, a contact sport. In most cases, all it takes is a couple of swerves and the racer is on his or her way again.
This time, though, Bösiger and Reinert ended up facing the oncoming traffic. While he spun, Reinert collected Major’s MAN, which was then rammed from behind by Steffi Halm (GER). While the three men were able to power off again in pursuit of the rest, Halm’s yellow Lion-MAN-truck was immobilised with a damaged front axle and had to be towed away while the track was cleaned up.
The second start too was ill-fated — this time Körber was the one caught out. His Iveco stalled at the end of the chicane facing the traffic and would just not start up. Since the German was unable to extract his truck from its predicament, there was no alternative but for the race to be red-flagged. At their nth attempt Körber finally managed to fire the engine up one more, and the German slowly made his way back to the grid.
After the field had sorted itself back into its original qualifying formation, it was time for a third start. This time, thankfully, nothing untoward happened.
Once again polesitter Kiss, determined not to be beaten, set himself clearly at the head of the field, followed by Hahn and Albacete, his fiercest rivals for the championship. The podium thus decided, the rest followed in their train like a string of pearls — Lacko, Bösiger, Vršecký, Reinert, and Frenchman Anthony Janiec in eighth, which meant he is on pole for the second race, a handicap race in which the first eight finishers from the first start in reverse order. The two final points places were taken by Körber and the Portuguese José Rodrigues (Renault).
The only excitement, if you can call it that, took place in the second half of the field. Young German André Kursim, alternated in 12th and 13th when his tankpool24 Mercedes was spun around in the fifth lap, dropping him to 15th. Just two laps later, the race was over.
OXXO Racing (Kiss / Major) was the top-scoring team, ahead of Truck Sport Bernau (Albacete / Bösiger) and Reinert Adventure (Hahn / Reinert).

Impressions: