Have you ever imagined that you work transporting things, around the country in a 500 hp and 1500 Lb/ft semi-truck and at the end of the week you go to the local race track to race against 100 trucks going at max speed?
try to Imagine your daily drive Semi truck, take for example an International Prostar or a Kenworth T800 as the most popular choice.
All almost stock and daily driven, apart of some rigorous inspection and in some cases Little upgrades: bigger injectors and bigger turbo setup.
Running pretty hard on your national and unique racetrack.
Located between los Andes, in a wet weather at 2600 meters above the sea level…. ready?
This is exactly what it looks like! In Spanish words: this is the: “Gran Premio Nacional de Tractomulas” (National Truck Grand Prix).
The inner most popular Motorsport and festival from Colombia, since 28 years ago attracts more than 22.000 people from around the country and people from Ecuador, Venezuela, Peru.
Part of his popularity is the little restrictive conditions all the trucks are daily driven around our country and is need to say that we have a strong cultural respect for the drivers of this trucks the reason is that due the geographical conditions great part of the roads are over Los Andes mountain range and requires a lot of Skills to drive in those big machines around that difficult roads.
The labour of these drivers is so difficult and important, for the Colombian culture, especially for the family of these drivers, culturally they link their good luck to some saints from the catholic religion. in every difficult trip they entrust their lives to “La Virgen del Carmen” (Virgin from Carmen) and the saint: ”San Cristobal” this event make a little homage to this traditional link.
The event starts early the saturday morning with more than 100 trucks, a pair of trucks goes in a versus sprint, until where left the fastest top 32 competitors.
From the beginning the races are very competitive almost all the trucks has equivalent output power ranging from 450 to 500 HP.
This part of the track is especially my favorite the driver’s goes a little hard and deep outside of the curve.
Some of the trucks came with a great livery.
Another great example is this Kenworth T800 looks pretty good, despite of the livery some of them are technically modified with bigger injectors and bigger turbos.
The FCAD (Colombian Federation of Automovilismo) make sure the cars pass some security inspections brakes etc but you have to put in mind how dangerous is this race; this cars are almost stock none of them have roll cage.
None the less the tyres are the same as the daily used, but in this case the painted letters looks damn good and helps entrust the racing spirit. the configuration in almost all the trucks are: 295 /72 R22.5 eight of them sure makes the job in putting the impressive torque of these monsters approximately 1500 LB/ft.
Pretty impressive how fast these trucks run at good speeds in this race track.
But the most exciting stage is the top 32 that runs on Sunday.
These are the first four trucks of the sunday to define the top 16 , the bet in the crowded public ranges between the Kenworth lovers and the International.
The sensation of a racetrack crowded, often times is one of the best parts because some of them support one or another and the supporting sounds transforms in an incredible background when the races are close.
It’s not only a versus Sprint that defines the best, after the top 16 cars where defined there is also an ability competence that makes the crowd stands up and breath dee …
Every driver have to prove their ability to stop the car at certain space and speed, meanwhile spending the less amount of time, then they must put the car in reverse, meanwhile the commissar allow to quit the orange box and after that, the commissar give the green flag to get one lap around the circuit of 2.060 meters.
Some of them literally eat the orange boxes.
After the top 16 we have a little break to allow some demonstration of other important series of motorsports, this time the offroad Kumba team showing their cars.
Also stunt riders showed a little show of their great abilities.
For the first time this year was created a new mono-brand racing series for the Caterham was refreshing see this kind of car racing breed in Colombia.
This time this cars were making some show drifting and running around the Tocancipa Track.
The show of “la Monomarca Caterham” was good but what happened next was more impressive in terms of our own experience, we had the pleasure to get a ride in their helicopter and get a first hand view of the Tocancipa track, thanks to Ludesa de Colombia that allowed us.
This is the Tocancipa track and is located at 30 minutes from our Capital city Bogotá constructed in 1981 is the only proper racetrack in Colombia.
Back in the main racing event , the eight finalist trucks had to do another test; this time a slalom like, with their trailers!
In some parts of the track was raining a lot more than in other areas. is inevitable to get amazed and wonder : how this drivers manage to drive at maximum attack in those conditions?
At the end the final 4 trucks that manage to make the best time and didn’t get penalized, was two international , a white Kenworth t800 and a white Freightliner.
The final four were trapped in the copious rain, making it more intense. The final part mixed some of the previous obstacles and the drivers had to do one more lap.
The track was so wet, the drivers hold the pedal to the metal for so long that both cars hit the boxes.
Finally after 2 intense laps and, some obstacles, the first semi finalist was Jose A Pantoja with the international Prostar.
These was the finalists of the 28 GPNT : freightliner M2 VS International Prostar.
The race was 4 laps, and mixed as well the previous obstacles.
Was portrayed with an intense rain, this was the epic fight for the win.
After the second lap, the Prostar of Jose A. Pantoja left behind the Freightliner M2 of Juan Camilo Guio.
Jose A. Pantoja gets their 3rd championship and also wins the first prize for the “champion of champions”.
Juan Camilo Guio with only 20 years old gets the second place!
The best rookie prize was for Edison Pachon with only 23 years old.
The next year will be as always more intense!, if you want to visit Colombia wanting a different and intense racing Feeling make sure visit us in July
Hope you enjoy this article and I leave you with some bonus images.
