Zolder – Preliminary Report

09. September 2008Three races within 3 weeks – this means that a stressful time lies ahead of the truck racers. In between, some of them will be in negotiations regarding the next season, others have to keep PR appointments, especially at the IAA in Hanover. But for now it’s imperative to concentrate on the Truck Grand Prix in Zolder which this year is back to its traditional date of mid-September. As we all know, last year the Belgians did a swap with Misano. For the antepenultimate round of the season there will be one slogan only – how can we break through the predominance of the Buggyra Freightliners. Just to trust that the race trucks from the Czech town Roudnice will drop out once or twice – as it happened to Markus Bösiger last year – that won’t be enough. In Most, for instance, it were rather the three top-seeded MAN pilots who were pursued by misfortune; Antonio Albacete had to retire in the Qualy race, and to Jean-Philippe Belloc and Jochen Hahn it even happened twice. And so, much to the joy of the fans, the two Renaults of the Czech Team Frankie, with Markus Altenstrasser and Frankie Vojtisek, pulled away. However, Bösiger’s and David Vrsecky’s victories were not really in jeopardy.
Now we are looking forward with anticipation to the performance of the MAN drivers if they emerge unscathed. For the German fans it is the third ‘home’ race in a row. After the get-together on the Nürburgring from every part of Germany, mainly fans from Bavaria and Eastern Germany swarmed in Most, and now in Zolder half the population of the Ruhr district and the Rhineland will cluster around the circuit. And, of course, they are hoping that Germany’s most popular truck racer, Jochen Hahn, will have overcome his streak of bad luck.
Nevertheless, the German is by now so far behind in the ranking that he will hardly have a chance to compete for the championship. Admittedly, on three super weekends he could still gain 180 points, but only on the off chance that the others had to retire or would not get any points. So there is a very bare possibility for him to get at the top. This means that – from MAN’s point of view – it will be incumbent upon Antonio Albacete to prevent the two Buggyra pilots Bösiger and Vrsecky from getting the title.
In Zolder the entire FIA ETRC phalanx will be present again, except for DAF pilot David Patalacci. For Javier Mariezcurrena it will be first appearance after his serious accident in Nogaro. The only race-by-race pilot registered is Erwin Klein Nagelvoort, the longtime go-and-stop king of the Nürburgring.
A cause for concern could be the weather, even though the weather services differ a bit about the forecast. But the trend is as follows: for Thursday, the day for the erections, they predict relatively fair weather, and what’s more, it will be dry. But during the night there could be thunderstorms and the rain will probably continue all Friday. For Friday night they forecast even heavier downfall. For Saturday, when the trucks will be on the circuit for the first time, it will not be an awful lot better. Only for Sunday they forecast a snatch of sunshine. And it will be rather cold, with temperatures of not more than 14 – 16 °C (57 – 60 °F) on Saturday. We can only hope that the weather people are mistaken. But – to be on the safe side – some rainwear and sweaters should be brought along.