By RoadworkUK
AKA my new favourite Motorsports formula. I mean; where else can you see cigarette-paper close racing between 1200hp, diesel fuelled, 5-ton monsters, belching black smoke and flames, roaring around a track at three-digit speeds?
I had the pleasure of attending the first rounds of the championship at the Brands Hatch circuit, Kent, and left in the evening with lungs full of vapourized rubber, soot in my hair and a broad grin on my face, as well as the upper register of my inner ear’s frequency response decidedly absent. Make the jump to take in a video that hopefully demonstrates some of the appeal.
And turn it up. Loud.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCO3MVt5Un0[/youtube]
OK, so they’re electronically limited to 100mph, but I’ll forgive them this out of pure common sense. After seeing the amount of mess made when one leaves the track, that kind of speed is plenty. And it’s not as if the racing isn’t exciting enough anyway.
In fact, to hell with the racing anyway. As a sheer spectacle there’s not much to beat it. And for broad-band total audio annihilation it scores big points too. I mean, a twelve-litre six-cylinder diesel engine has a big set of lungs anyway, and married to a turbocharger the size of the centrifuge in Moonraker and a set of megaphone exhausts, the aural signature of the Truck Racing Championship ranges from sub-bass that powders your bones to the kind of knife-sharp ultrasonics that send dogs and bats into a frenzy.
Far from being a factory formula, the list of entrants is as varied as it is compelling. Some of them have been doing the rounds for years, like Ryan Smith’s venerable SISU and the magnificent White-Volvo of Brian Burt, then there’s Steve Rothery’s flame-spitting Foden while Chris Levett runs an ex-factory MKR-Technology Renault Premium, which may be the most spectacular looking racing machine of all time.
Pure awesomeness. Get yourself to a meeting ASAP.
And, as a parting shot, here’s Brian Burt balletically powersliding his White-Volvo.
[Photos and video Copyright 2014 Hooniverse/Chris Haining]
Jeff Glucker