The journey to the initial event of 2003 FIA European Truck Racing Cup was around three thousand kilometres long. Therefore the silver blue trucks started the journey from their home at Roudnice nad Labem already in the evening of Sunday 4 May. The mechanics arrived to the gate of the circuit in the night of Wednesday. Next day they spent by building the paddock facilities which have considerably changed compared to the situation last year. There is a new third Buggyra in typical red of the Spanish pilot Antonio Albacete. On Friday the mechanics were already busy with the preparation of the trucks that later on passed the scrutineering by FIA technical delegates.
Three free practices were on the agenda for Saturday morning. Gerd indicated right in the first one that he was serious with defending the title, being almost three seconds ahead of Albacete on the second place. David was third with a minimum loss of 0.2 s. Adam Lacko, eighteen years old newcomer at Tatra team of Stanislav MatŘjovskě, was a great surprise. He was even ahead of both drivers of the team of Deutsche Post, Harri Luostarinen and Markus ™streich, who have new PAM-03-MAN trucks. The monitors in the Press Centre were still displaying the results of the first practice and the pilots of Race Truck category were on the start. With a grin, some people started to refer to the Super Race Trucks category as a Czech rather than European Cup. Both the second and the third free practices had similar results with Gerd being the fastest, followed by David losing about a second and Albacete ranking third.
Before the important timed practice the mechanics checked the trucks again. A small defect on the exhaust pipe of Gerd's truck had to be fixed. Then the pilots were ready for the most important part of the day. Compared to the rules of last two years the timed practice was reduced by one third. Therefore each pilot has only 40 minutes to make his fastest lap. The ranking on the top was changing but Buggyra was never out. Albacete was winning in mid-time when both Gerd and David were in the pits striving with the mechanics and engineers for the final attempts. Gerd was the more successful one assuming the leading position in a short time. Nobody was able to beat him, which meant a comfortable pole position for the qualifying race. It was however remaining unclear for a long time who will rank second. Albacete was the luckier one in the end, being fastest than David by 0.12 s. Next to him was ™streich who won a small duel with Lacko. Gerd's truck underwent a regular inspection and maintenance in the evening. David's Buggyra however required the attention of the mechanics for a considerably longer time. Since the times achieved on place two and three were very close, it was decided to make an adjustment in the suspension in order to gain more stability. David got some more room to attack, if necessary, or to defend himself against the attacks of the competitors even under difficult technical circumstances.
The warm-up session of Sunday was again won by Gerd, who enjoyed the ride without slightest technical difficulties. Unfortunately David was not so lucky at all. Fuel supply to one cylinder failed, David was able to complete a single lap only and then he headed to the pits. No wonder all the mechanics were extremely busy to prepare the truck for the qualifying race within the short time left. Lacko was also missing on the grid because of gearbox defect during the warm-up. Moreover the engine block was damaged as well which meant a complete exchange of both the engine and the gearbox. Gerd comfortably won the race but behind him the struggle was intense. In the first bend David succeeded to follow Gerd along the inner edge of the track overtaking Albacete. Immediately afterwards ™streich surprised by overtaking Albacete as well. In the next lap, however, David was betrayed by brakes exactly on the same spot and for a moment he got out of the track. This pushed him behind to place four. He managed to easily defend it against Luostarinen, who was just struggling, but there was no chance to catch up with those who were ahead. The situation was very tight there and in four laps ™streich bravely resisted against the attacks of Albacete. In the end Buggyra showed its power and for the final race Albacete secured his position next to Gerd.
Gerd was again the best one to start. Just afterwards the first bend became very crowded and several pilots got out of the track. The collision was most unfortunate for our pilots with David falling back to the very end for some time. The fastest drivers in the first were ™streich, Albacete and Gerd. David assumed sixth place. Immediately afterwards Gerd challenged Albacete and pushed himself to the second position. David was also trying hard and overtook first Lacko and two laps later also Luostarinen. Just before mid-time of the race Gerd already placed himself to the lead and started to enlarge the gap between himself and ™streich. Final victory was already easy. Albacete had to retire tree laps before finish because of flat tyre. This meant a chance for David to secure third place for himself. However, much to a general surprise, instead of passing to the last lap he diverted to the road leading to pits. It was a turbocharger failure that prevented him from finishing the event on the podium. Obviously Luostarinen was very happy to finish third as well as Lacko on place four. He could hardly imagine a better premiere. Due to his lead over the others, David was still classified fifth.
