Sunday in Spielberg Part 3 – Lacko wins again

01. May 2016Spielberg - The weather wasn’t being kind to the truck racers and the 16,500 spectators - the rain continued to pour down in sheets throughout the final race. Once again race control had the trucks take two formation laps behind the pace truck and then two under yellow flags.
And as in Sunday’s first race, the polesitter – Ryan Smith this time – was able to pull out a gap ahead of the rest. The British MAN pilot was fortunate that Forman, who was leading the pursuit, couldn’t quite keep up.
Overtaking the young Czech wasn’t easy either, so the closest of the pack – Kiss, Reinert, Körber, Hahn, Janiec, and Lacko – simply slotted and followed the Buggyra pilot in file.
Körber then passed Reinert with relative ease, and Lacko began to dispose of the drivers ahead of him. As in the earlier race, the Czech was in a league all his own. With half of the regulation race distance covered he was already in the lead, going on from there to take his second supreme win of the day.
Meanwhile Körber had been able to overtake first Kiss and then Forman, and was now behind Lacko and Smith in third place. But he wasn’t going to sit satisfied with that, because he was manifestly quicker than the Briton. And maybe Körber might have succeeded in getting ahead had the race not been ended abruptly after the 16th lap, when the German was only half a second behind Smith.
The action wasn’t restricted to the three frontrunners, however.
Janiec had slid straight ahead off the track in the first corner, having to let the whole field pass before he could set off again. Reinert lost it in the truncation that completes the truck race loop, and bowed out of the points battle.
Hahn, on the other hand, ... was lucky. The thrice champ had first been able to sweep past Kiss, and then Forman, for 4th place. But then he too was caught out, in the same spot where teammate Reinert had earlier been. That cost him several places - but then came the premature end of the race.
MAN pilots Thomas Robineau (FRA) and Eduardo Rodrigues (POR) were bogged down in the gravel, and race control decided that their positions were too dangerous to allow the race to continue given the track conditions.
So Hahn got to keep his 4th place after all, ahead of Forman, Kiss, and Vojtíšek.
Dutchman Erwin Kleinnagelvoort drove an incredible race. The only Scania pilot in the field, nowhere close to being a Top 10 candidate owing to the power of his truck, was clearly most at home in the obtaining conditions, finishing 8th ahead of more highly fancied competitors like Janiec, Ellen Lohr (MAN), and even home hero Altenstrasser, who had to make do with a point-less 11th place.
For the second time today Buggyra International (Lacko / Forman) was the top team, with Reinert Adventure (Hahn / Reinert) and Lion Truckracing / Lenz (Janiec / Lenz) first and second runners-up.
Hahn leads the championship standings after this first round with 48 points, followed by Lacko (42), Reinert (33), Körber (28), Altenstrasser (21), and Janiec (20).

Impressions: