In the morning a typical cold and rainy weather ruled over Zolder. Two time practices took place under these conditions. Gerd likes water but the whole team had nothing but bad luck this time. Martin Koloc and the mechanics were looking for optimum tuning of the truck, because the track was significantly changed compared to previous years. However they had hardly any possibility to test new adjustments of Buggyra. Gerd had to stop all test shortly after starting the first practice due to turbocharger failure. In the second practice the situation was repeated just the same way. Third time practice was already on the dry track but our pilot could not finish a single full lap. His efforts were stopped by ruptured power steering oil tube. Last item of the agenda on Saturday was the time practice which results decide upon the position of starting grid of Sunday's qualifying race. The mechanics worked very hard and the truck was able to keep the pace for the whole period of one hour reserved for qualification. Gerd was showing balanced performance around 6th place. It seemed this would be the final result but in the last moment Parrish from UK pushed through and succeeded in overtaking Gerd by mere 0.19 second. Taking into account the preceding difficulties, the result is anyway excellent. Gerd has reserved the better position in the fourth row for himself. For the conditions of expected strong rain this position may be a good start to be even more successful in the qualifying race. The evening job of the mechanics will include regular checking and maintenance and in addition also the replacement of front brake discs and adjustment of rear axle.
Gerd was starting into the qualifying race on Sunday from place seven of the fourth row. The start was successful and very quickly he got to place five. However, Bösiger from Switzerland succeeded to get ahead of Gerd already during the first lap. The distance to Parrish from UK on place seven was sufficient and gradually increasing. In the middle of the fourth lap Buggyra suddenly slowed down and drove off the track to the barrier. The race was won by Kreutzpointner from Germany followed by Luostarinen from Finland. Albacete from Spain was the third with some loss to the first two. It was very busy in the pits and since there was no time for detailed analysis of the failure, Martin Koloc decided to replace whole engine immediately. There were less than two hours left to the start of the cup race but the well orchestrated team of mechanics made it and Gerd appeared in time on the starting grid at the end of the group of fifteen trucks, i.e. in row eight. Step by step he was able to move forward overtaking slower drivers of Group B. In the finish of the fourth lap he was already seventh losing six seconds to Parrish. After four more laps he was already in direct contact with him and since he was making the times that were faster by more than one second, it seemed more than clear that Parrish would be soon overtaken. But Gerd was not destined to see the chequered flag in Belgium either. In the ninth lap a failure in the rear axle suspension stopped him. On the rostrum Luostarinen occupied the highest position, accompanied with Kreutzpointner and Albacete ranking second and third, respectively.
