The first race, the first victory, the first penalisation… Like in all fields of human activity everything is for the first time once in truck racing too. Markus Boesiger is a master of premieres in racing the five-tonne monsters. Last year he won a race for the first time after the first start in the colours of the new team with a new truck. He also became the first European Champion whose title had to be finally decided by the supreme motor sport instance represented by the International Court of Appeal of FIA in Paris.
After Nurburgring 2008 Markus can boast of another "first in the world" act, becoming the first victim (probably without any blame on his side) of a new rule, hidden to most of us. The rule says that the driver riding from the pole position must not exceed the speed of 70 km/hr when approaching the passing start. And in the opinion of the German organizer Boesiger did so. Even though his telemetry showed a starting speed about 7 km lower, nobody cared for this information. And even if anybody had been interested, it would have been too late anyway!
And this is where the rub lies. I certainly agree that to err is human. Especially when man has to communicate with technology. Nevertheless application of this questionable rule should have been governed by common sense, like in many other cases in truck racing, luckily, and the irreversible step could have been at least suspended. Unfortunately, the responsible agents of the Nuburgring decided otherwise. The sovereign winner of the race, who had not obtained any advantage by his deed (which in addition he probably had not committed at all) for the rest of the starting field drove in the same speed, was punished by an ordered pass through the pits. Markus Bosiger thus probably lost his first "sixty" at the Nurburgring and in this season too. And perhaps he even lost the chances for his second European Champion title! Oh yes, I agree with the statement of David Vršecký who said that any driver starting from the pole position would have become the victim of the probably not very accurate measuring instrument. But this is a poor consolation for the Swiss driver.
And yet the solution to the whole issue is so easy. What about leaving questionable decisions to the end of the race? On the one side there will be the commissioner and his device. And on the other there will be the driver with the right to defence and the possibility to call witnesses. For there is