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Clouding skies over Paris

Clouding skies over Paris

13. February 2014This photograph, taken the evening before the sitting of the FIA Truck Racing Commission in Paris, seems to reflect almost exactly what participants and observers experienced at the meeting. At the moment it’s a clear blue sky with a smattering of small puffs of cloud, even though a storm front looms on the horizon. This Monday we learnt that one of the largest protagonists in the FIA European Truck Racing Championship intends to reduce its engagement massively after this season. The management of this company had indicated to some of the teams beforehand that the withdrawal of Renault Trucks was enough reason for it to reconsider its own engagement — if no other manufacturers involved themselves in the sport more intensively during the course of the season. An internal memo on the staff intranet to this effect was unequivocal.
We, nevertheless, promised not to publish the development till the company issued an official release. But some of our more eager colleagues have gone ahead anyway, and moreover painted the prospect of the demise of the FIA ETRC. This from Eurotransport: “Now there’s ample cause for speculation. But it’s certain that the Truck Grand Prix on the Nürburgring or the 24 Heures du Camion in Le Mans will continue to draw the fans as standalone events.”
Note the “standalone” descriptor, as if there are going to be no other races. We’ve seen similar pronouncements of doom before - over 10 years ago, when Mercedes and MAN announced the end of their engagement in the SuperRaceTruck class. But instead of dying, the FIA ETRC only scaled new heights thereafter. And this is the way most of the participants see it, as an opportunity to make long overdue changes. At a time when long-established relationships are no longer as certain as they were once imagined to be, such changes are inevitably easier to effect.
The point of departure, though, was provided by the Truck Racing Commission itself when it announced that, beginning in 2015, the teams will no longer be restricted in their choice of engine. There was a time when a race truck was only allowed an engine that came from the same model as built in series. Later this was relaxed to allow any engine from the same manufacturer. And from 2015 a team may build any engine it chooses into its race truck(s). A definite consequence of this will be a greater diversity of badges in the fray and a more level field, as many who do not have massive factory backing (now) will still have the chance to fight it out at the front.
The specialist race engine developers are ready already; other smaller companies see no end of opportunity. The clouds on the Parisian horizon are therefore nowhere near as ominous as so many pessimists have felt duty-bound to declare.