Most This And That
07. September 2017Was last week’s 6th round of the FIA European Truck Racing Championship at his home circuit in Most the championship decider for Czech Adam Lacko? Maybe not, but it certainly was a big stride towards the title. Nevertheless, his most dogged pursuers – the two Germans Jochen Hahn (Iveco) and Steffi Halm (MAN), and Hungarian Mercedes pilot Norbert Kiss – have a mathematical chance of overtaking the Buggyra Freightliner ace even now. But for that to happen, Lacko would have to go without scoring in quite a few of the 12 races that remain – that too is possible. At the risk of repeating ourselves, this is something Jochen Hahn can sing ballads about, having had the experience himself.
After the furnace of the Hungaroring, Autodrom Most was like a chiller – not really cold, but the opposite in absolute comparison to the weekend before. Everyone was happy that the rain stayed away – racing in the wet is always a gamble, regardless of strategy and tactics. Even so, there were spectacular and painful contacts with no less spectacular effects. Many observers wondered how the MAN driven by Englishman Ryan Smith could keep going with a ripped-out right door. They’ll have been equally amazed to see the Oxxo truck back in the fray in the final race with a replacement in blazing orange. That was actually a part from the team store of German MAN pilot Sascha Lenz, a shining testimony of the mutual support that teams in the truck racing community are ever willing to provide – directly visible in this instance. But the teams also help one another out in ways the fans don’t see. Lenz, for example, himself had received – from a team running a completely different make of truck – immediate replacements for springs on his truck that had been broken in the brutal races in Hungary.
The solidarity so strongly in evidence is only in between races, however, and in the paddock. Out on the track it’s all-or-nothing competition, each racer doing everything he or she can to go faster than the rest. Faster relatively speaking, of course, because the final race in Most was anything but fast-paced, despite being run in the best racing conditions we saw the entire weekend. The surprise winner of that one was Englishman Shane Brereton (MAN), who didn’t figure on anybody’s probables lists before the race – but ended up finishing with a huge lead.
The main reason for that was old hand David Vršecký. As it happened, the twice European champ, second in his Buggyra Freightliner, succeeded in holding up a pack of quicker trucks over the entire 11 laps of the race. We’ve never in all our years seen so many trucks so close at the finish – less than four seconds separated Smith in 10th from Vršecký.
The truck racers don’t have the luxury of time to look back and ruminate on this odd outcome. The season proceeds at a quicker pace than Most Race 4; in only a few days the weekend in Zolder, Belgium, will be upon us, with Le Mans following immediately after. Then there’s a fortnight’s breather before the finale in Jarama, at the gates of Madrid, on the first weekend of October.
That’s as far as the ETRC goes; the Coupe de France Camion concludes in Albi in mid-October, and the Brits will only know the outcome of their championship after the first weekend of November in Brands Hatch.
Impressions:
