Sunday in Albacete

08. June 2008Albacete - The weather was not very bright this morning, with a dense cloud cover and, moreover, there was a blustering wind sweeping over the paddock. Over the course of the day the sun burst through the clouds now and then, but, according to the weather forecast, Sunday was supposed to be a bright and sunny day. But at that time nobody could have foreseen what the weather gods had in store for the truck racers during the last race of the day. But, first of all, an addendum to our Saturday’s report. In the evening the stewards had been sifting video footage for more than three hours, and then – as already mentioned – 10 of the pilots were summoned. For some time there was rumour that there would be a time penalty inflicted on Antonio Albacete for attacking David Vrsecky. But eventually, as a result of endless discussions, there were only warnings issued to all people involved, and the two MAN pilots Stuart Oliver and Mikhail Konovalov were disqualified. Anyway, the crowd of more than 20,000 was mainly focussed on celebrating their Antonio. And they had good reason to do so already in the timed practice. Whereas defending champ Markus Bösiger was not yet at the top of his form at the beginning, everything was almost perfect for the Spaniard from the second lap on, and with 1:53,968 min. he achieved the best time of this weekend. But after only a few minutes the timed practice had to be stopped, because one of the trucks had left a huge diesel layer on the track. After the circuit was re-opened, somehow the vital spark was no longer there, and the lap times were not anything like as good as the ones of the first laps. The order on the grid for the Qualy Race was as follows: Albacete (MAN) on pole, David Vrsecky (Freightliner), Jean-Philipp Belloc (MAN), Bösiger (Freightliner), Jochen Hahn and Egon Allgäuer (both MAN).
The start was rather civilized – till they entered the first bend. Especially Belloc and Bösiger clashed heavily – with dire consequences for both of them. The incident left the Swiss stranded in the wide safety zone with a totally demolished wheel rim and a flat front tyre. Belloc managed to do two more laps, but then he had to return to the pit. This left Vrsecky and Hahn as the only real competitors for Albacete. But the German could not quite keep up with the two others, and eventually crossed the finishing line on third, ahead of Allgäuer, the two Renault pilots Markus Altenstrasser and Frankie Vojtisek, and the MAN drivers Oliver, Dominique Lacheze, Balazs Szobi and Konovalov. During the whole race Vrsecky was driving close to Albacete, sometimes behind and sometimes ahead of him and often it seemed that there would be another attack similar to the one the day before, only vice versa – Vrsecky vs Albacete. But the Czech held his horses, and the Spaniard crossed the line in 1st with a slight advantage.
Immediately after the race two Mirage jets did their stunts, making a lot of noise. But Bösiger’s mechanics, in particular, were not in the mood to watch. Only by using heavy duty instruments they succeeded in removing the rim from the axle.
And right in time for the Championship Race all hell broke loose, there was a thunderstorm with a deluge of water. As customary in such cases, the trucks did two green flag laps to begin with. It continued raining, accompanied by lightning and thunder and the grand stands were considerably vacated. Albacete retained his lead brilliantly, and as Vrsecky drove rather cautiously, the local hero managed to pull away from his chasers. In the meantime Bösiger had begun to progress up the field. By the sixth lap the Swiss had left behind 17 opponents until he arrived at the back of Altenstrasser. For 4 laps the Buggyra Freightliner pilot tried to pass the Austrian, and just when he had succeeded and started to attack the second Renault pilot, the race was red flagged three laps before the finish. At the moment of the last crossing of the finish line, however, the Swiss was still a few tenths behind Altenstrasser, so he had to be content with 8th position, ahead of Szobi and Anthony Janiec (Renault). And also among the front runners there were some changes. Two laps before the sudden stop of the race Vrsecky’s truck span around several times, Hahn passed and, finishing behind Albacete, won his first podium place of this season. Behind Vrsecky, Allgäuer was on fourth, ahead of Oliver and Vojtisek.
The team ranking was won by Koller + Schwemmer Team (Hahn/Belloc) ahead of Buggyra (Bösiger/Vrsecky) and Team Frankie (Vojtisek/Altenstrasser). Due to his misfortune Bösiger (123 points) lost his lead in the overall ranking. Leading is now Vrsecky (134), and also Albacete (131) has now gained a lead over the Swiss. And Hahn (92) and Belloc (84) swapped places, too.
Afterwards the thunderstorm went on and caused mayhem. Several times there were short electricity failures, and besides, for a long time it was not possible to leave the paddock at all. The access tunnel was 1 metre underwater and it took a long time until an emergency exit, leading over the track, was opened. But also the streets in and around Albacete were partly totally flooded, so that it was almost impossible to progress once you managed to leave the circuit.