Jarama This And That

04. October 2016This year’s Gran Premio Camión de España on Circuito del Jarama, the 8th round of the FIA European Truck Racing Championship, was the first in the post-Cepsa era, the first without Spanish hero Antonio Albacete, who lives not far away in Madrid.
But that didn’t stop 26,000 fans from coming to watch the action – and enjoy the splendid Spanish summer out in the open, – and they put on as much of a presence as crowds of up to 60,000 would in earlier years.
Only now they were cheering the almost-permanently-sideways drift exhibitionists, burnout- and donut king Orlando Rodriguez and brothers Alberto and Enrique Vila.
These have been around for decades, driving trucks of corresponding vintage, and don’t have a hope of being even halfway competitive; yet you’ve got to see their popularity with the spectators to believe it.
Orlando and the Vilas aren’t looking for sporting success anyway – they are here primarily for the track entertainment, on which there’s as much emphasis here as, perhaps, the racing itself.
Circuito del Jarama is a challenging circuit indeed for both, trucks and racers. Some spots are particularly crash-prone, but this time the racing was clean overall and there were no untoward incidents. A direct outcome of the all-pilots meeting at the last round in Zolder?
On Sunday the first title of this year’s FIA ETRC was decided – German
MANler Jochen Hahn and René Reinert had together built out such an overwhelming lead as Reinert Adventure that there was no taking the team championship from them.
Hahn’s individual lead in the standings over his sole remaining rival, Buggyra Freightliner fatfox Adam Lacko, stays unchanged at 35 points. Unassailable, you’d imagine, but the history of the ETRC is littered with examples of how such a big advantage can go up in smoke.
While Team Hahn is understandably guarded about guessing the final outcome, S.L. Racing was uninhibited in its celebrations – MAN pilot Sascha Lenz is probably the first German to win the Spanish championship.
There was no deadline for celebrations at Jarama, because several members of the circus also had their birthdays on the weekend.
Under a bright blue sky Monday morning, with nobody about and no distractions, the teams got back down to preparing the trucks for the finale in Le Mans.
On Tuesday the last teams set off on their 1,100 km trek... with a stopover planned for somewhere on France’s Atlantic coast.

Impressions: