Reflections: A Year of „Famine“
24. March 2009Very rarely a report here in our news section has prompted as many reactions – and for several readers it evidently caused some confusion, too – as our article “A Year of ‘Famine’”, dated March 19, 2009. To begin with, the photograph has absolutely no symbolic character. Generally, the focus is always on the top pilots – not only here –, and we only wanted to point out that there are others, too. At the moment there is only sporadic information about who will participate in 2009 or who won’t. The FIA Headquarters in Geneva did not utter a single word yet about the number of teams and pilots registered already. However, the deadline is still more than three weeks away.
Should in the end the number of entries fall short of the required number of participants by 10 or more, the FIA would even be entitled to cancel the championship. Nobody really takes this worst case into consideration; but then, you never know, as the recent snap decisions with regard to the regulations for the Formula 1 have shown.
Even in the FIA’s flagship series the opinions and interests of the FOTA (Formula One Team Association) were evidently completely discounted. In European truck racing there isn’t even such an organization. Equally ignored as the FOTA today, back then those people must have felt who where involved with the greatest dedication – not only financially; at least that was one of the reasons they provided for their decision to withdraw at the end of the season 2001.
That summer they were still forging euphoric plans. After the successful promotion tours through South Africa and South America in the years before, there was even talk about a world series with additional races in the USA, Oceania and Asia. But a few days before the races in Zolder there were the September 11 attacks. Of course the deep cut-backs on every section of the financial and economic life following thereafter did also effect the commitment of the then protagonists in truck racing. Financial restrictions, a postponement of the world series to a later date – that was to be expected. But what happened was the total withdrawal from the SuperRaceTruck series – which was practically the synonym for truck racing at that time.
Many of the established SRT teams backed out completely. David Atkins switched to RaceTrucks, Peter Müller, Marin Koloc and Chris Hodge tried to organize and establish something new in the “Premier League”. But without the support from the big manufacturers the sword of Damocles was constantly hanging above the SuperRaceTrucks. But even the surprising entry of Volkswagen Nutzfahrzeuge could not prevent the end; it was only prolonged a bit.
The RaceTrucks could actually never really replicate the golden nineties. To be able to preserve their own interests, there were every now and then attempts to reconcile the teams, just as the organizers – but in vain. Instead of the formerly regular TV presence – a markedly important criterion for sponsors – there were only some abridged reports from time to time. Nevertheless, there were time and again inquiries from companies that were definitely interested in the European Truck Racing Championship, for instance as (series) sponsor, or from organizers, such as people from China and Bahrain.
People were of the opinion that the WebPortal „truckracing.de/truckrace.info“ was the mouthpiece of a superior organization in charge of the European Truck Racing Championship. At first all we could do was to clear the matter up, and the second step was to refer to the contact people for the FIA, the teams or the individual organizers. After that we got only occasionally some requests.
Furthermore, we are not that presumptuous to think that it only needed a superior European truck racing association – or whatever you will call it – representing everybody’s interests, and as a result everything would be like paradise for truck racing. But those problems we got now, could perhaps have been handled differently beforehand. It is definitely the absence of a unified appearance, the missing public image where the FIA European Truck Racing Championship differs greatly from the Formula Truck in Brazil. And in a crisis situation like the present one this can be noticed clearly.
PS: This photo hasn’t a symbolic character either – and neither does it mean that truck racing could possibly soon suffocate in the dust they blew up themselves.
