ETRA appointed promoter for European truck racing
22. August 2015The FIA European Truck Racing Championship gets back into gear next weekend after an extraordinarily long nine-week summer holiday.
But it’s not as if nothing’s been happening in the interregnum.
At its most recent session in Mexico on 10 July the World Motor Sport Council (WMSC) announced the provisional appointment of the European Truck Racing Association ETRA as the first official promoter of the FIA ETRC.
This Wednesday, 26 August, the Truck Racing Commission convenes in Paris. Two days later the ETRA functionaries will meet in Most with the drivers, teams, manufacturers, sponsors, and the Truck Race Organisation (TRO), the umbrella association of teams and drivers, to present their concept for the marketing of the sport. Also on the agenda for this plenary session is a brainstorming for the next season.
The FIA ETRC has for ages been a grouping of discrete events, the individual local organisers being entirely responsible and the sole spokespeople for their respective events. Most of the other racing series, on the other hand, have had a single organisation to represent their interests. The FIA through its Truck Racing Commission and the TRO, of course, are the only institutions whose remit spans the entire season. But they are primarily concerned with the technical and sporting elements. For most all of the last 35 years the commercial aspects of the sport have been given short shrift.
Truck racing in Europe has its origins in professional truckers’ drive to compete on race tracks, like their peers in the US then were doing. The early European truck racers weren’t what you’d call bona fide motor racers, nor did they want to be — they prided themselves on being different somehow, and jealously guarded their independence.
But then the popularity of the whole thing exploded. The ETRO (European Truck Racing Organisation) was founded, a book of rules written up, and the first European “championship” instituted. In 1986 ADAC Mittelrhein (the regional affiliate of the Allgemeiner Deutscher Automobil-Club) and Automobilclub 1927 Mayen (AC Mayen) organised the first Truck Grand Prix on the Nürburgring. This was the first event conceived with a long-range vision that would make it a milestone in European truck racing.
Integral to the concept was a paddock that offered open access to all and an expo for the truck industry that has since become Germany’s second-largest exhibition for the trade after the IAA. The organisers also envisaged a true-blue trucker festival with live concerts. Best described: motorsport up close within a bigger package that holds out something enjoyable for every member of the family.
There had never been anything like this before, and in subsequent years many other racing series have taken on elements of the TGP concept.
The truck racers meanwhile continued to lead a separated existence, holding tenaciously to their cherished independence. But the sport itself had attained thitherto unimagined dimensions, which – a few years later – got the FISA, as the FIA was then known, into the act.
The basic structure consisting of independent rounds without a major domo stayed intact. The individual organisers sat in the Truck Racing Commission with the manufacturers and representatives of the teams and drivers - and the FIA functionaries, of course.
The FIA ETRC continued to grow in stature, becoming the second most popular FIA series in Europe after Formula 1. As a consequence, groups of individuals tried at various times to set themselves up as promoters for the series, none with any success.
The topic was high up on the agenda of the decisionmakers throughout last season, and the FIA issued a call for tenders that attracted four applicants. After tortuous negotiations the FIA chose the ETRA.
Following the announcement, Rolf Werner and Georg Fuchs have been appointed managing partners of ETRA Promotion GmbH. Werner is the representative of the DMSB (Deutscher Motor Sport Bund, the German ASN) on the Truck Racing Commission and has for the last 20 years been active in various functions in the organisation of the Truck Grand Prix. Interestingly – and here his story takes us full circle to the beginnings of the sport – he’s also chief of AC Mayen.
Georg Fuchs is no stranger in motorsport circles either, even if the racing series he’s had oversight of don’t involve 5 tonne behemoths but machines many sizes smaller and quite a bit faster. They include GT Series and the KTM X-Bow Battle, which was a support event for this year’s TGP on the Nürburgring.
The third partner is Christoph Gerlach. As head of the motorsport department at ADAC Mittelrhein he orchestrated the Truck Grand Prix for 13 years; for the last three years he’s organised the Truck Race Trophy at the Red Bull Ring.
These three are expected to get more promoters on board before the meeting in Most on 28 August, where all stakeholders will strategise for next season and discuss a plan of action to strengthen the FIA ETRC.
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