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News page
18 May 2002
Two podiums for Stuart
Oliver but technical trouble for Team Castrol Atkins
The opening round of the 2002 FIA European Truck Racing
Cup, held in front of 30,000 fans at the Circuit de Catalunya (Barcelona) last
weekend (May 18/19), brought mixed fortunes for the Castrol-backed MAN drivers.
Stuart Oliver made an excellent start to the season with two third places; enough
to leave him second overall in the points standings.
Terry Rymer, making his truck race debut for Team Castrol Atkins, had a frustrating
weekend in Spain where seriously reduced performance of his truck prevented him
from showing his real potential. Delays in completing the build of his MAN meant
that several problems that should have shown up in testing occurred – including
the fact that the team had been supplied with the wrong rear axle ratio, leaving
the truck some 20km/h down on top speed! Steve Parrish was on hand to give advice
to Terry and the team.
Rymer found that in addition to the axle ratio problem his engine had a complete
lack of turbo boost. Despite these major handicaps he quickly came to terms with
handling the six wheeler and secured 11th quickest lap time in the field of 23.
The rolling start of Saturday’s Qualifying Race saw the MANs of Frenchman
Noel Crozier and Lutz Bernau heading the pack – with plenty of close action
behind them.
Rymer, still lacking turbo boost, made a good start but his reduced top speed
left him vulnerable on the long straights and he had to work hard to maintain
16th position at the flag.
Saturday’s Cup race saw Bernau and Crozier fighting hard at the start with
hard-charging Oliver moving up to eighth on the opening lap – and sixth on
lap 2. He then faced a lengthy battle to find a way ahead of the Mercedes of Jose
Rodrigues and finally emerged fifth at finish.
Rymer took the start, but although the team had pushed the engine rev. limit higher,
his MAN was still only achieving 150km/h and with the continuing lack of turbo
boost they soon realised he was unable to make any progress and pulled him into
the pits on lap 7 before any damage was done. The mechanics then faced a late
night tracing the boost problem to an intercooler pipe and electronics –
raising their hopes for day 2.
Sunday’s Qualifying race saw on-form Oliver running third throughout, well
placed to watch the renewed battle between Bernau and Crozier. The Frenchman finally
emerged victorious – with Oliver just 5.5 seconds down at the finish –
well clear of Austrian Egon Allgauer (MAN) with Silva completing the top five.
Rymer had improved turbo boost – and compared to the start of the previous
day the team had worked hard to improve his best lap times by 5 seconds. He held
13th in the early stages and held his ground in a mid-field battle – finally
losing just one spot to Antonio Conjero (Mercedes) to end up 14th.
Rymer’s final outing of the weekend came to an end before the race had even
started. A water pump on the starting grid saw all the coolant start to run out
– so he wisely pulled into the pits rather than cook the engine.
Team Castrol Atkins now face another race – against the clock – to try
and change the rear axle in Germany before continuing on to next weekend’s
event at Misano in Italy.
Despite the difficulties he faced in Spain Terry Rymer was very upbeat about his
new team: “With the truck being completed so late we really had to treat
this first event like a shakedown test – and in that respect it was successful
because we’ve identified and overcome several problems. Obviously I need
some more track time to get the set-up of the vehicle to its optimum – and
hopefully in Italy we’ll have the right axle to give me a higher top speed.
“The whole team have really worked hard over the past few weeks and particularly
so this weekend, helping me to find 5 seconds improvement in two days - so I’m
sure that together we can soon be very competitive”.
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