Viking Volvo Victorious
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• Swedish timber haulier Curt Gorensson (42) won the Multipart British Truck Grand Prix at Silverstone last Sunday, to go to the top of the European Truck Racing drivers' championship.
The speedy Swede drove his bonneted Volvo N12 into the lead on the first lap of the 15 lap, 70km race, and was rarely troubled thereafter, finishing more than six seconds ahead of the second placed truck. Italian driver Angelo Rangoni was the winner of a thrilling battle for second place with the British crowd's favourite, Willie Green finishing third. At the finishing line Rangoni's lveco 109.38 finished just 0.04 seconds ahead of Green's Cummins powered ERF E14.
Remarkably, Green entered the pits on lap three after a collision with Rangoni's lveco had forced his bonnet up in front of his windscreen. By
the time Green returned to the track he had dropped from third to tenth place, but he fought his way back, putting in the fastest average speed of the weekend at 137.58 km/h (81.51mph) to come within a whisker of second place.
Afterwards, there was an official protest by the West Coast Diesel Works team, who claimed that Green's speed had been due to the fitting of illegal extras.
Green told CM that the officials checked his vehicle and temporarily disqualified him until they found they were doing the tests incorrectly. "They have actually broken the truck," he says.
He puts his extra speed down to the fitting of narrower rear tyres, which cancelled his truck's understeer, and to the anger he felt after his bonnet flew up.
Green said the present truck racing rules are far too vague. "They must be tightened," he says. "If the rules were applied to the letter of the Law every truck in the final would have been disqualified — every bloody one."
Last year's Grand Prix winner, Richard Walker, came seventh in this year's race following engine problems. Only in the Last Chance race did he show his true pedigree when he powered from 27th place on the grid to win by five seconds, and qualify for the Grand Prix.
Rod Chapman, who led the drivers' championship up until last weekend had a miserable time with an engine problem limiting his participation to three laps over the whole weekend.
In the separate races for different power classes, Mel Lindsey won Class One, Willie Green won Class Two, and Angelo Rangoni won Class Three.