Friday in Zolder

18. May 2007Zolder - While it had been raining more or less heavily during the past days, today it was dry at last. There was a thin cloud cover but the strong may sun broke the clouds ever so often and it became nice and warm. What was less agreeable to many people was the handling of some other matters. The easiness that gave Zolder a peculiar charm in the past, is gone. Since last year the new scanner system is handled quite restrictively. The camping-site amidst the race track is by now equipped with a solid roller shutter, so that, understandably, everything is kept in order. In the paddock, however, there was some confusion on Thursday, as obviously the erections of the VIP marquees and the arrangement of the stands of the teams had not been clearly determined before. But by the time the first free practice started, everything focused on truck racing.
For the first time this season Mikael Johansson will enter the races. The young Swede’s main job is car painting, especially for trucks. and he doubles as stuntman, too. That’s were Johansson discovered his liking for truck racing. And he steers his glaring red Scania bonneted truck in a rather spectacular way, very often with the truck’s rear tyres leaving the ground. Besides Johansson, there are two more pilots making their season’s debut in Zolder, Jose Rodrigues and David Patalacci. While the Frenchman still drives his old DAF, Rodrigues took over David Atkins’ MAN which last year was driven by Markus Bösiger. To everybody’s surprise, Noel Crozier arrived in Zolder with a MAN TGA, a truck in fact, which could not have come from his seemingly infinite fundus. And indeed, this old hand at truck racing has constructed a new RaceTruck for the French Championship and in Zolder he will have the MAN service team install a new engine. And besides, the Frenchman hopes to be able to some testing in Zolder.
At the first free practice, Markus Bösiger could continue with an outstanding performance, as already shown in Barcelona. On his Buggyra Freightliner the Swiss marked fastest time with 1:59,914, closely followed by title defender Antonio Albacete. The surprise of the day was certainly Frankie Vojtisek, who gained fourth position on his Renault behind David Vrsecky, however, ahead of Egon Allgäuer and Gerd Körber. But there was a minor flaw in the times of the first free practice, because, for whatever reason, the organizers did not manage to equip all the trucks with a time transponder, so that for Jochen Hahn, among others, there was no registered official time.
But at the second free practice the Mercedes pilot demonstrated that he came to Zolder well prepared. After all, this is not really one of the favourite circuits of the Swabian. Last year he lost his leading position in the championship here, in 2002 he overturned his car in Zolder, and three years earlier his father, Konrad, met with the most severe accident of his racing career. With 1:59,465 he topped Bösiger’s fastest time by about half a second. Albacete, too, could improve his times, same with Vrsecky and Vojtisek, who on fourth position, managed again to leave Körber and Allgäuer behind. The same time levels were reached by Chris Levett and Stuart Oliver. A very thrilling set-up for tomorrow’s timed practice.