The race returned to the Spanish circuit of Albacete after a long period of ten years. At that time, the race in Spain had opened the 1995 season and Martin Koloc had laid the groundwork for his first European Champion's title by finishing four times second. As to the Buggyra Team, only Gerd had raced on the Albacete circuit, which is of a flat, stadium-like nature just like the one in nearby Valencia, before the weekend's event. David was in for his premiere.
However, he dealt with it in a very good way, finishing fourth in Saturday's measured practice, which earned him a place in the second row of the qualification race's roster, just behind Gerd's Buggyra. As to Gerd, he was beaten only by the current leader of the Championship, Allgäuer from Austria, while local guy Albacete finished third. Our drivers had an excellent start and overtook their neighbours in the roster in the very first corner. Gerd made use of the opportunity to slam the accelerator pedal and immediately develop a gap between himself and his opponents, which none of the latter was able to close. However, there was an eight-strong group of committed pursuers, led by a trio comprising Allgäuer, David and Albacete. It was particularly the Spaniard who could not put up with the loss of his roster position, and he kept attacking David continuously. Their fight peaked in the third lap, when Albacete sent David's Buggyra by an unfair bump into deep sand. For a while, it seemed that the race might be over for David, but he managed to crawl by centimetres out of the sand trap and get back to the track. However, by the time the whole pack was half a lap ahead. However, David delivered a fantastic pursuit performance in the remaining five laps, overtaking half of the drivers and ensuring a place in the seventh row of the roster of the cupe race. Albacete got a one-minute penalty for his dangerous driving and dropped from the third to twelfth place.
Gerd's performance was stunning again; he won the main race in an "in the lead from the start to finish" style, and he was even able to afford a luxury of slowing down and save his strength for Sunday in the end of the race, just like in the qualification race. The duel between Albacete and David was again the best attraction for the spectators. The two drivers were slowly biting their way through the pack and entered the last lap the fifth and sixth positions, respectively. David made a brilliant move at the end of the race, overtaking the Spaniard at the finish line by half a bumper. However, FIA stewards had the last say. They heard out Albacete's protest and, following several hours of discussions, took the third place from Allgäuer, on the grounds of unauthorized technical modifications, while David was awarded a one-minute penalty for having allegedly overtaken the local driver while yellow flags were on. The fact their duel took place quite far away from the dangerous section obviously was not worth considering.
Buggyra also scored a partial success owing to the second place of Gerd's fellow countryman Hahn, who uses some of our technologies in his truck, in the cup race.
Gerd and David were the Sunday qualification race in the first and second rows again for the Sunday qualification race, but they took off even better than on Saturday and were showing their taillights to the rest of the multicoloured pack for six laps. At the time hardly anyone could doubt that Gerd would win again and David would finish in the second place, Gerd swerved to the pit lane to serve his STOP and GO penalty. David thus coasted to a comfortable victory, while Gerd moved out again to pursue every point he could. He finally got three, but he was hardly elated about them, as his day was spoiled by the premature start penalty. "Even Egon Allgäuer, who was with me in the first row, came to me and admitted he was a bit late after the green lights were turned on. But the stewards in the tower saw it in a different way," added the enraged Gerd after returning to the pit.
David repeated Gerd's Saturday performance in the cup race. He had an excellent start and was circling around for thirteen laps to safely secure the best result of the season. He had minor problems only at the time he wanted to overtake two weaker drivers by a lap. All of the sudden, the latter started competing between themselves and did not realize they had an express from Roudnice by the name of Vršecký behind their backs. However, David had enough of a lead to Allgäuer in the second place, and the short delay did not do him any harm on his way to the golden cup. Gerd's work was also perfect and he caught up with Vojtíšek in the fourth place halfway through the thirteen-lap race. However, his advance was thwarted by a defect of the brakes' cooling system, which forced him to slow down significantly. In the end, he "only" earned points for the seventh place, but he delivered a lion-hearted performance in spite of the handicap.
David is now fourth in the overall standings, with just three points dividing him from Bösiger in the third place. Gerd is seventh, losing ten points to his fellow countryman Hahn.
