Mourning for Aurélio

06. March 2008Yesterday afternoon Aurélio Batista Félix, called Aurélio by everybody, passed away in Brazil. He would have turned 50 on April 24. Perhaps for most of our readers the name Aurélio does not ring a bell, but the Brazilian was a big shot in the truck racing business: Inventor, initiator and promoter of the South American counterpart of the FIA European Truck Racing Championship – the Fórmula Truck. On the initiative of Erwin Pape, Volkswagen Nutzfahrzeuge, there was established a close relationship between these two series recently, and quite a few people hoped that a cooperation with the Brazilians would boost European truck racing, because what Aurélio had accomplished for his country commanded admiration from everyone.
The Fórmula Truck has 10 races per season on a monthly basis with nearly almost capacity crowds. Aurélio’s huge tross of trailers conveys the entire equipment, also for public relations and marketing, from one circuit to the next. The Brazilian TV has set hours where the races are broadcast live. Last year Aurélio was at the Truck Grand Prix on the Nürburgring together with a delegation from the Brazilian Fórmula Truck. This year Brazilian race trucks are going to delight the German fans with a demo race on Sunday, 14:00 hours. And it is planned to broadcast this race live on the Brazilian TV. Many people hope that this will entail a jump start for the European truck racing scene. Only some days ago two Brazilian top pilots were present at the Buggyra test drives in Nogaro. All these actions arose out of the friendly contact between Erwin Pape and Aurélio. It remains to be seen, whether Aurélio’s successors will be equally interested in having a closer cooperation of the two most popular truck race series.