Let’s Go Racing

We take ourselves much too seriously as individuals and companies and organizations in North America. Nobody has a sense of irony, the one quality we all need most to make it through the day.

In the public eye, this industry is always on the defensive, never willing to show that we’re quite a spirited bunch, given half a chance.

All that’s by way of introduction, because a sense of irony and a generally lighter outlook is essential to an appreciation of the wonderfully absurd sport of European truck racing. I mean big trucks. And I want it to come to North America.

It would do us good. A way to celebrate the wonderful machinery we work with. And not least, a way to highlight the sophistication of our technologies for the civilian masses to see. One heck of a showcase for advertisers as well.

Years ago, I had the chance to report on the first Canadian date in the Great American Trucking Racing series. I was there on the corner-one infield at Cayuga Speedway’s oval track, cameras ready, as a dozen or so unmuffled racing trucks roared towards me. My ears could hardly take the noise, and the air was full of wick-turned-up black smoke as those much-modified Whites and Jimmys blasted into the first turn.

And then, a few weeks ago, I found myself worlds away watching a radically different dozen machines compete for the European Supertruck Championship at the legendary Nurburgring race circuit in Germany. Infinitely more sophisticated than the long-lost GATR series, the Supertruck competition is sanctioned by the same body that controls Formula One, the pinnacle of motorsport. Indeed, the races are held on many of the same road courses used in Formula One racing.

The trucks are branded MAN, Mercedes-Benz, Sisu, Tatra, or Volvo in the name of fan recognition, but they’re pure racing machines-in factory teams just like Ferrari and Maclaren. Supertrucks only look like Tatras and MANs. Underneath one Finnish Sisu I found a Cat C12 pumping out 1600 horsepower and over 3000 pound-feet of torque, using a standard-issue ADEM black box. These machines do zero to 100 km/h in 3.7 seconds, and reach 160 in less than eight.

There’s a sister series, just called Racing Trucks, for modified “street” rigs. They’re slower, but much less expensive, so amateurs get involved. There are even a few North American conventionals competing.

Could this exciting series, launched in 1983, cross the Atlantic? One of the major sponsors of the European series is ZF Friedrichshafen. Its ZFMeritor transmission joint-venture is already involved in racing here, sponsoring Mike Ryan in his Pikes Peak effort (see Heard on the Street, page 31). Ryan and ZF want to bring serious truck racing to North America, and they’re looking to gauge the industry’s enthusiasm.

Yes, please, I say. But let’s ignore the oval tracks of NASCAR and the Indy Racing League as much as we can-they’re just too painfully boring. We have excellent road courses to choose from.

To those who think truck racing shows a lousy public image, relax. It’s actually the reverse. If we do it the way Europeans do, the trucks will be utterly quiet and completely smoke-free, the series professionally organized, and the competition first-rate.

To would-be sponsors, I’ll point out that the weekend crowd at Nurburgring was 250,000 strong-far more than even Formula One has ever attracted. It was a festival, with major manufacturers entertaining VIPs in lavish trackside tents, and thousands of truckers and civilians listening to non-stop live country music when they weren’t buying Mercedes-Benz or Renault souvenirs.

It was a blast, and there’s no reason why we couldn’t do the same here. Unless we continue to take ourselves so seriously as to rule out fun.