Jarama – This and That

04. October 2011During the truck racing silver jubilee at the Circuito del Jarama it remained pleasantly dry and very hot. Already while approaching the circuit located north of Madrid you saw only scorched fields, yellow withered grass and dust-covered wasteland so that evidently it had not rained for a long time. But certainly several truck racers wouldn’t have minded a bit of rain. At least MKR Technology boss Mario Kress never made a secret of his believe that rainy weather could probably be to his pilots’ advantage. But it seemed – at least at the beginning of the weekend – that Markus Bösiger (SUI), Markus Oestreich (GER) and Adam Lacko (CZE) didn’t need any rain in order to shine in Jarama, because initially the Renault trucks turned out to be second to none. But even the rain could not have prevented the fiasco the MKR team suffered later on – attributable to several accidents and mechanical problems – in their battle for the team championship. It is their highest aim to defend their team championship title, as by now the drivers’ championship will certainly be a matter between the two MAN pilots Jochen Hahn (GER) and Antonio Albacete (ESP).
For more details about the fact that – and why – particularly the Sunday races became extremely costly for several teams, please refer to our report “Sunday in Jarama”. Two smaller teams were hit hardest, Team Blaise from Belgium and Team Orsini from France. On Sunday evening they did not know yet whether they would be able to complete the repair work on their RaceTrucks in time for the final round in Le Mans.
But there weren’t solely matters to lament over, but also things to celebrate. Already on Saturday night the victory ceremony for this year’s Sponsor Challenge took place. Some years ago Lutz Bernau initiated this cup where all those pilots can collect points who did not make it into the top ten of the ETRC in the year before and who do not belong to a team. Of course this includes also the many race-by-race pilots who have been participating as guest drivers this season, so that the number of entrants amounted to 32. As most of these guest drivers are Spanish and were also in Jarama this weekend, it was agreed upon in conformity that the challenge which usually is scheduled for Saturday in the final round – which was always held in Jarama in the previous years – should already take place at the penultimate round in Jarama. The top scorer was the Finnish driver Mika Mäkinen, followed by his British MAN colleague Mathew Summerfield and the Belgian Renault pilot Jean-Pierre Blaise. Mercedes pilot Stephanie Halm, the only lady in the ETRC, got sustained applause for her 7th-place finish. And of course the young German was given the award by TRO boss Fabien Calvet personally.
And we would like to mention that Fabien Calvet and Lutz Bernau had collected a substantial amount of prizes donated by many sponsors. And the top ten even got additional cash prizes.
On Sunday evening there was another reason to celebrate. On the occasion of the silver jubilee the organizer, Examotor, had set up a buffet and a bar counter on the start-finish straight. After the official part of the event those people of the truck racing community who had stayed in Jarama met up with a lot of companions from long ago in order to take a trip down memory lane.
Almost all the teams are going to proceed directly from Jarama to Le Mans for the finale round. That’s why on Monday several teams took advantage of the time they had saved and did some maintenance work which – because of the turbulent Sunday races – for some teams became an arduous job. And furthermore this day provided an opportunity to do extensive test drives, particularly in view of new options for the coming season.

Impressions: