Column: David Addison
Our columnist-at-large doesn’t drive a Kia, but he likes truck racing
There are things in life that people stood at the bar of a local pub and of a certain age are loathe to admit: they listen to Phil Collins. They drive a Kia. That they have recently started wearing slip-on shoes. Or that they like truck racing. Since it burst on to the British stage in 1984, motor racing’s heavyweights have brought drama and characters to the circuits, both here and in Europe. Yes, it has evolved, changed, struggled at times, but it largely remains a crowd-puller especially on the continent where some of the FIA European Truck Racing Championship events garner massive attendances.
So, what’s so good about it? Well, there is the racing. It isn’t crash and bash but it can be physical, especially as most of the trucks are defying gravity. A 10-tonne truck isn’t designed to go over kerbs sideways, and although a modern-day race truck is a far stiffer beast than those early road-going rig days, they still look prone to toppling over at any moment.
There is tyre squeal aplenty, occasional smoke although that is tightly monitored by officialdom, and behind the wheel are real characters. When Andrew Marriott championed the first British Truck Grand Prix at Donington in 1984 the entry came from enthusiastic hauliers and plenty of ringers. Marriott put Martin Brundle, Barry Sheene and Steve Parrish on the grid among others and it gave Parrish a whole new career as he went on to storm to European titles.
Marriott also worked hard at making the events a family day out. Initially it was all truck racing but in later years in the UK cars were added to the point where, as the British Truck Racing Association series struggled, the truck races were slotted in to car race events. But in the discipline’s pomp there were often 12 races over two days with stunt shows thrown in for good measure. Gilbert Bataille, a French truck stuntman whose two-wheeling antics appear in most movies where a truck is involved, was a regular attempting a lap on two-wheels, and for that first event Marriott found some loony motorcycle stuntman called Arto Nyquist who performed his display with his leg in plaster…
That fan-friendly element remains to this day. The German event, at the Nurburgring has been going for over 30 years and Tom Astor, a German country and Western singer, has performed at all of them. His crowd is almost as big as the race crowd and indeed many fans at the ADAC’S event go for the concerts as much of the racing. The concours competition is another hit in Germany and so is the Go-stop competition on the Friday and Saturday nights – it isn’t rocket science: accelerate from here to there and knock down one of three cones in a triangle, but the fans love it.
And, especially in Germany, the fans are well looked after. Partly through the manufacturers who have endless giveaways or the many trade sites that allow you to but everything from USB charger to a cowboy hat, and plenty of beer. If I have one guilty pleasure about truck racing, especially the German Grand Prix at which I have done the English TV commentary for the last three years, it is people-watching! In the Nurburgring Boulevard, our commentary room nestles alongside bars and shops and spectacular people. Seldom have I seen quite so many drunken, beer-gutted tattooed folk in one place. And the men are no better… Indeed, thanks to the Nurburgring piping pop music into the gents’ loo, I have a vivid memory of a gang of drunken Germans enacting Jump by Van Halen while urinating. I consider keeping dry to be one of my finest achievements…
It is on-track action that is ultimately what counts. And it delivers. With experienced veterans like Jochen Hahn, Norbert Kiss and Antonio Albacete in the ETRC, Ryan Smith blitzing the opposition in the British events and up-and-coming youngsters Lukas Hahn and Teo Calvet, third and second generation racers, plying their trade in Europe, it has some very competitive entry lists. The shape has changed, with more cab-over rigs than bonneted trucks these days, but the Czech Buggyra Racing team operating a trio of Freightliners in Europe maintains the bonneted trucks on the grid, just as the Volvo White Road Boss was dominant in the late 80s/ early 90s in the hands of Slim Borgudd against bonneted Volvos of Curt Goransson, for example.
The ETRC’S reverse grid races, top eight from race one’s result, ensures drama and different winners. One thing it has always focused on, though, are entertainers: drivers who know how to put on a show, be it on track or in the autograph sessions that are a feature of the Fan Village in the ETRC. As the FIA ETRC has grown again in popularity, the British and French series are perfect places for the amateur racer to ply their trade, as is the Mittelrhein Cup at the German GP, which brings German and Dutch squads to take on the Brits. Older trucks and smaller budgets still have a place and can be competitive.
Despite being kickstarted by the Brits, truck racing has ultimately found its foundations in mainland Europe but wherever you watch it, truck racing is a massively spectacular form of motorsport.
My advice? Just be careful whom you stand next to in the loo…
“Truck racing ultimately delivers on-track, and that is important”