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First Tests

First Tests

16. February 2008Nogaro seems to become to the truck racers what Barcelona is to the Formula 1 pilots. During the last years it was customary that quite a few teams of the FIA European Truck Racing Championship had their first serious trials of the season in the rather sleepy little town of 3,000 souls in the Gascogne situated in Southern France. From Monday onwards the two Buggyra pilots, title holder Markus Bösiger and the third placed of the European Championship, David Vrsecky, will cruise at race speed on the circuit in their trucks that are already tooled up for 2008. In recent years the Czech team did all their trials only at the Autodrom of Most which is no more than 90 kilometres away from their own manufacturing plant. But there the weather conditions are rather unpredictable, very often the track is covered with snow and ice at this time of the year.
A very special touch is added to the tests in Nogaro through the initiative of Erwin Pape, Senior Vice President of Volkswagen Nutzfahrzeuge - Caminhões e Ônibus - in Brazil. The declared truck racing fan arranged for the two Volkswagen pilots Felipe Giaffone and Renato Martins, the winner and the second runner-up resp., of the Brazilian Truck Championship, to enter into a short contest with their counterparts of the European Truck Championship, Bösiger and Vrsecky. And a return visit is already being planned. Then the Swiss and the Czech shall prove their abilities in the Brazilian VW race trucks. As Senior Executive for product development at Volkswagen Nutzfahrzeuge in Hanover, Mr. Pape was already the initiator for the participation of the VW SuperRaceTrucks in the European Truck Championship and could celebrate the two last wins in the SuperRaceTrucks events in 2004 and 2005.
And they say that Egon Allgäuer, too, will use the opportunity to have some drivers tests in Nogaro. For a long time now there are speculations that the Austrian driver and team boss will present a Russian pilot as Gerd Körber’s successor. Allgäuer, who is considered to be the actual trail blazer for the trials in Nogaro, will again go to Southern France in mid-April for the – already tradional – trials. Then the entire MAN armada will get down to business.
This year these activities were a little postponed. Last year the first round took place already on March 31, but this year the season will begin about 6 weeks later in Barcelona.