Truck Grand Prix This and That
19. July 2013You couldn’t really complain about the weather at the Truck Grand Prix on the Nürburgring, the fifth round of the FIA European Truck Racing Championship. Following a week of rainfall, it was pleasantly dry over the weekend. Truck race fans have usually had the opposite experience high up here in the Eifel in mid-July. So, given the splendid weather, it’s surprising that “only” 165,000 spectators made their way to the Ring. It’s probable that five events in just a week – including the Truck Race Trophy in Spielberg and the German Formula 1 Grand Prix on the Nürburgring on the first weekend of July, and the DTM round at the Norisring and the MotoGP race at the Sachsenring – are simply too many even for the most passionate motorsport fan. While we have no way of knowing how many would want to go to all five events, certainly a large number of fans would have loved to be at two at least. Moreover, given that there’s only so much one can stretch a euro, different individuals would have different priorities concerning which race(s) to visit.
Those that chose to come to the Ring will have had absolutely no regret. There was a superb programme of activities on the track, in the paddock, and in the Müllenbachschleife. Those who didn’t make it to the Ring could at least follow the action in the ETRC and Mittelrhein Cup races on the Internet via our live streaming service. (For copyright reasons we weren’t able to transmit anything else!) And there were a good 58,000-plus of them. Granted, this number was fewer than last year – we had 65,000 viewers then, – but we only streamed on Saturday and Sunday, whereas in previous years our coverage began on the Thursday itself. The reason for this is that we deployed a new technology this time that we’d had very little time to set up and test. It was finally go for our live transmission only on Saturday morning — anything that could be viewed before that would have been our test programme.
The races themselves were packed with action. And it wasn’t only the relentless battle for the Mittelrhein Cup, races that were red-flagged and restarted more than once; even FIA racers complained about the excessive aggression of some of their competitors. Directly after the races many made it a point to bring this up, and some of the pilots pulled no punches on their Websites and on Facebook.
Local hero Jochen Hahn, who had never had great success at the TGP in earlier years and was the highest points-scorer on the Nürburgring last year with 47, managed “only” 43 this year after being set back by accidents. But his fiercest rival for the title, Spanish MAN colleague Antonio Albacete, didn’t do much better — his tally was just one point more. The leaders in the overall classification now lie only 12 points apart, and with a maximum of 60 points up for grabs at each race weekend – and we’ve got five more of them to go, – the two are as good as on par.
At times the paddock drew more fans during the day – in the evening all the attraction was in the Müllenbachschleife – than you could see watching the races from the stands. The tankpool24 tent in particularly was thronged throughout, the main draw being the live music. The small Mercedes team may not be the fastest on the track, but definitely the most upbeat from the looks of it. Nevertheless, every single tent – be it MAN’s or those of Europarts, DKV, suppliers of fuels and lubricants, or what have you – had crowds of visitors at the entrance. The Truck Grand Prix is a composite of motorsport, theatrics, live music, and above all, a trade show at which any enterprise that has to do with the truck industry can showcase itself and its wares to customers and prospects in an unbeatable setting. And that’s why it’s so galling for the truckrace family that many large companies that eagerly use events of the FIA European Truck Racing Championship for publicity refuse to engage in the racing itself. Have they imagined for a moment what the TGP and the nine other events would be without truck racing?
The dates for the TGP in 2014 have already been announced: 18 through 20 July. There’ll be no playing around with the schedule because the Formula 1 race will take place on the Hockenheimring next year. On the same weekend, though — as you might expect from Bernie Ecclestone & Co. On the other hand we had a similar situation in 2010, and then there were more than 200,000 visitors to the TGP!
TRO TV’s 20-minute roundup of the weekend will be on air at 6:45 pm on Saturday, 20 July, on Sport 1. It will include, for the first time, octocopter coverage of an ETRC race start, i.e. pictures from a small multirotor drone that overflies the trucks as they accelerate towards the first corner.
Impressions:
