T-Sport Truck Racing’s Terry Gibbon – 3 times on podium at Le Mans!
By Melanie Derflinger
At the end of September, we left England to travel across the Channel to participate at the penultimate round of this year’s FIA European Truck Racing Championship taking place on the world-famous Circuit Bugatti in Le Mans near Paris in France. Although it was Terry´s first race at Le Mans, we were all looking forward to the event well-known as one of the best truck racing events of the year. Similar to the Truck Grand Prix at Nürburgring, spectators cannot only watch and experience the races of the ETRC, but also four national truck races. And there is plenty more to explore: nicely detailed show trucks, a big variety of exhibition stands, a fun fair and a stunt show followed by a firework display that usually fills the grand stands at the start-finish line on Saturday night.
When the official programme started on Friday, the sun was shining and we were well prepared for what was about to come. After two test sessions in the afternoon, the complete team was confident that we could have a good weekend ahead.
On Saturday, Terry outperformed exceeding our expectations even though the qualifying result wasn´t perfect. In both races he achieved impressive and consistent lap times with no mistakes. Terry managed to get onto the Grammer Truck Cup podium – and not just once, but twice!
In the evening, we took plenty of time to service our race truck in detail to make sure the second day would be as successful as the first one.
The plan worked out: much to our delight and our fans’ satisfaction, Sunday´s qualifying result was very similar to the one of the day before. At the following race, Terry once again achieved consistent lap times, made no mistakes and didn’t receive any penalties and finally finished in 11th place –another podium finish within our class in the Grammer Truck Cup!
As we started into the final race of the weekend, the pressure was high as we all hoped to leave Le Mans with 4 trophies! Things looked pretty promising indeed. Unfortunately, after a come together with another truck we spun off the track and had to retire from the race.
Still, three podium finishes on a single weekend is a fantastic result for us. It is probably the best race weekend we had so far – we are definitely on a good way! We will stay at Le Mans one more day to service the race truck before we carry on our journey to Jarama near Madrid in Spain to take part in the final round of the 2018 FIA European Truck Racing Championship next weekend on 6th and 7th October.
