Friday in Le Mans

07. October 2011Le Mans - By now everybody has arrived at the Circuit Bugatti; the two race-by race pilots registered for the races in Le Mans – Gerd Körber (GER) with his Iveco and the Spanish MAN pilot Javier Mariezcurrena – and also all the FIA pilots including Florian Orsini (FRA) with his Mercedes Benz and Renault pilot Jean Pierre Blaise (BEL). The trucks of the two last mentioned pilots had been the most heavily damaged in the series of collisions in the Jarama races. Both trucks do not yet look their best, but they are ready to start.
In Le Mans almost everybody laments over the cold weather. Today it was a mere 13 °C (55 °F) but at least it stayed dry. As it is, the splendid summer weather in Jarama has spoilt the truck racers a bit.
The action will already start in the early hours of the morning and will partly go on until late in the night. Tomorrow, on Saturday, the sun is going to rise at 8:06, and less than half an hour later the RaceTrucks will already be on the track for the first time. And it’s almost the same in the evening. While it’s quite likely that the FIA pilots will do their laps by daylight, the competitors in the French championship will not return to the paddock before sundown.
But after that they will not call it a day yet. The finish straight in front of the grand stands will be abuzz with activity, and later on during the night the crowds can watch a grand display of fireworks and several teams will again provide live music in different tents.
Fabien Calvet, TRO executive, FIA coordinator and 24-Heures-Camions co-organizer, is highly involved in the spectacle on the straight finish, and today he already practised a bit. He will be participating with several different vehicles, such as Jochen Hahn’s drift transporter equipped with a SuperRaceTruck engine which is said to produce 1,600 HP. And that certainly is a vehicle that needs getting used to.
And there was another vehicle that Calvet probably had to pretty much get used to, when he did some short tests on the Circuit Bugatti for the French journal “France Routes” – it’s the “Mean Green” Volvo Hybrid RaceTruck owned by the legendary Swedish truck racer Boije Ovebrink. With its two systems the bilious green racer produces about 2,100 HP; and during the short test drives Calvet reached a top speed of 220 km/h (137 mph).

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