Just like in Misano, Italy, our team came to the season's biggest race one truck stronger with Adam Lacko on leave from the World Touring Car Championship where he is on the Internet Expres Prima team.
Nürburgring always attracts a vast number of pilots and this year was no exception with nearly 40 trucks on the start. The high number resulted in an unusual organization of the racing weekend, with practices and timed practices split into two independent groups and the beginning scheduled for Friday morning. Gerd was in Group A together with Allgäuer, Bösiger, Vojtíšek and the young Rodrigues. In Group B, the toughest competitors of David and Adam were Albacete, Hahn, Garrett and Crozier. Free practice was entirely in the hands of Gerd and David while Adam finished fourth. But the sky darkened before the timed practice and one shower followed after another. Even under such arduous conditions, Gerd topped his group again with a lead of over one second and was congratulated on the pole position by his fans. The second group also had to cope with slippery asphalt but thanks to the improving weather, its final times were faster. The practice was much more leveled and the names in the top spots changed constantly. In the end, the difference between the first Albacete, the second Hahn and the third David was mere hundreds of a second! Adam placed fourth again. But FIA commissioners had a big surprise in store: they took the results of both practice races and placed them in one sack, sorting pilots based on their times and their odd or even positions into two qualifying races. The outstanding Gerd had therefore found himself in the second row of the odd group because of his "only" sixth best time!!! No wonder he was extremely irritated and left the depot in the evening saying that there is no need for the mechanics to ready the truck for the following morning as he is not the FIA officials' fool.
In the morning, however, with the sun shining, he got into his overalls and drove so well in the warm-up as to have a record lap time. Albacete, coming from the pole position, had the best start in the qualifying race with David tailing him and Allgäuer pursuing them in some distance. Over time, the rest of the pack was more and more lagging behind. Upon entering the last lap, David attempted an attack but could not make a turn and drove off the circuit. Allgäuer took this opportunity to get behind the Spaniard. David wanted to come back to the second position in the final turn, but ultimately settled with the certainty of the third. Finishing just behind Allgäuer, he earned important points as well as a decent starting position for the main race. The fourth Garrett lost almost 30 seconds. The second qualifier was in the hands of the German home side, so to speak, because Hahn's locomotive was trailed by Gerd's car from start to finish. The rest of the imaginary colorful train arrived after 20 seconds led by Adam. His satisfaction with placing third was only short lived, however, because technical commissioners found the Buggyra 25 kilograms lighter than permitted by the rules even though it had been weighted before that repeatedly. The situation was made worse by the fact that there was no place for Adam in the trimmed cup race roster. The cup race was extremely dramatic with pilots relentlessly trading places. First of all, Gerd had a bad start and found himself in an initial commotion. He was seventh after the first lap. David, on the other hand, was doing great pursuing the leaders Allgäuer and Hahn. Hahn was soon ahead of Allgäuer and after two laps, so was David. Gerd was fighting hard and soon drove near the Austrian. With a bit more than one lap to go, Gerd even managed to take the third position for a short while but then had to break fiercely, enabling Allgäuer as well as Albacete to overtake him.
Our pilots shocked their opponents in the Sunday timed practice: first, Gerd won his group with a record time; then, half an hour later, David improved the record. As a result, David had the pole position in the first qualifying race and with some graceful driving took ten points for victory. Gerd pulled off the same feat in the following qualifier although his lead was not as impressive. Adam took eight points for finishing third. For the first time this season, two blue Buggyras stood in the first row on the start of a cup race. After the start, David took the lead for a while but after some jostling in a technically challenging section near the start fell to the third place behind Gerd and Allgäuer. Adam stuck with Albacete at the fifth place. In lap three, David briefly drove off the circuit and was ruthlessly hit upon returning onto the asphalt by the Swiss pilot Seiler; this sent David's truck into a tire safety barrier. The paralyzed truck bounced back and hidden in clouds of dust headed against the swiftly moving ruck. Fortunately, no one hit David - the consequences of such a collision would be horrific. Allgäuer kept attacking Gerd and also sent him off the circuit several times. But Gerd fought hard and defended his lead. In the end, the Austrian managed to take the lead after driving under Gerd at the beginning of lap seven. Nevertheless, it was Gerd who could enjoy the gold laurel because Allgäuer made an elementary mistake in the last lap and crashed without being threatened by anyone. Adam finished after the second Albacete and the third Hahn. However, he earned no points again for he was disqualified due to exceeding the maximum speed limit.
Overall, David is third, Gerd climbed to the fourth place and Adam is fifteenth.
