Nogaro This And That
19. June 2016Nogaro - The 3rd round of the FIA European Truck Racing Championship in Nogaro, a tiny commune in the southwest of France, was every bit the expected truckrace- and trucker festival, with more than 40,000 visitors in total. We’ve often repeated here that more than 10 times as many fans descend on Circuit Paul Armagnac on race weekends as Nogaro has inhabitants. But that was when the official population was close to 3,000.
Now with 30 people per square kilometre, the Gers department in the heart of the Gascony province is one of the most sparsely populated departments in France, a country that on the whole isn’t itself particularly densely populated. (To compare, North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state in Germany, has 523 inhabitants per square kilometre.)
The economy here is almost totally agrarian, and like all regions of this type across Europe, Nogaro too has suffered from an exodus to the cities. As a result, the present population of the town is less than 2,000.
Nevertheless the truck racing weekend actually recorded a spectator record, the 40,000-plus outnumbering the locals 20 to 1.
Just how important truck racing is for Nogaro, and how solidly the whole town supports the truck race weekend, was evidenced by the race truck convoy through the small streets on Friday evening. Even if the rain did what it could to dampen the festivities, the enthusiasm of the fans and the racers didn’t flag one bit.
Of course it wasn’t all celebration; there was also plenty of serious stuff for the 40,000 to watch. The motorcycle trials, the huge truck parade (a highlight at many truck race weekends, and at the TGP on the Nürburgring as well), and an abundance of trucksport — in addition to the races of the FIA ETRC there were those of the Coupe de France Camions.
The Schwabentruck Iveco team had exercised its “joker” for the Nogaro round at the beginning of the season itself. Tankpool24 meanwhile had found irreparable damage to the electronic controls of an engine that had been earmarked for the Mercedes truck of André Kursim, and Czech Frankie Vojtíšek announced he was pulling out with a technical defect. But despite these withdrawals, there was no shortage of top-class action.
That Hungarian Norbert Kiss would win SuperPole and then the following race in only his third weekend in the tankpool24 Mercedes was totally unexpected, and will only make the rest of the season even more interesting. So much the more a pity, then, that the twice-champ had to throw in the towel on Sunday owing to engine damage that his team couldn’t repair at the circuit.
The two MANs of the German Reinert Racing outfit with Steffi Halm and René Reinert weren’t very much more fortunate either. Accidents they could do nothing to overcome the consequences of lost both the chance to collect more points, even if Reinert did appear satisfied with his win in Saturday’s second race.
Steffi Halm, on the other hand, was more at odds with events, especially since she’d stood on the podium at the conclusion of the final race. In fact there had been an indication in the last lap itself that Frenchman Anthony Janiec, who’d crossed the finish line only a few tenths ahead of Halm in his MAN after a high-wire duel, had been awarded a drive-through penalty.
In the Sporting Regulations, Section 15.3.b stipulates that such a penalty must be converted into a 30s elapsed-time penalty if it is awarded in the last three laps, or after the conclusion of the race. That promoted Halm to the podium.
But long after the champagne on her overalls had dried, Steffi and five other pilots were informed that they too had invited 30s penalties. The reason cited was that, in accordance with Section 18, a speed of between 50 km/h and 70 km/h must be maintained on the approach to the lights during a rolling start; going any faster or slower is cause for a drive-through.
Be that as it may, the fight for the title remains monstrously close. Czech Adam Lacko (Buggyra Freightliner) has just two points more to his FIA accound than MAN rival Jochen Hahn. Why, even the newly resurgent Norbert Kiss, with 85 points, is in with a fighting chance if his Mercedes runs as well over the six remaining weekends as on the Saturday in Nogaro.
It’s now 10 years since the event, but everyone in Team Hahn Racing can remember very clearly the unpleasant unfolding of the 2006 season after Nogaro, when just four more rounds remained (the results of the TGP at the Nürburgring didn’t count towards the FIA ETRC that year). Over the course of those four weekends Spanish MAN pilot Antonio Albacete was able to rack up a massive 93 points more than championship leader Hahn in his Mercedes-Benz — and go on to win the championship in Jarama.
Impressions:
