2017 Tata T1 Prima
Tata Motors wants to promote truck driving and racing on a very large scale
Formula 1 lasted in India for 3 years but the Tata T1 Prima Race is now in its 4th year. Yes, this is what Tata has been exclaiming around and it is actually a great feat that the company has been organising this race pretty efficiently and successfully since the past few years. We attended the 2017 Tata T1 Prima race which is the 4th edition and had quite a lot of fun watching the trucks in action. There were also some pleasant surprises in store, read on to find out!
The Tata T1 takes place at the BIC every year. The race comprises of Indian as well as international drivers. There are 3 categories – Super, Pro and Champions. The Super category has new Indian entrants while the Champions category consists of last year’s Indian participants. The Pro category has international participants from Europe and UK.
On 18th, there were qualifying rounds happening and the drivers were putting out their best performance to get a good timing on the track. Do note that all the race tooks place on a smaller part of the track and not the entire route. The large oval at the back of the track was omitted from the race route too. Hence, the race route had a total distance of 3.1 kms.
We started checking out the trucks and then Tata offered all of us a taxi ride in the racing trucks on the circuit. I was super excited since even though I’ve driven on the BIC earlier, it was my first time in a truck, and that too a racing truck. Quickly fastened my helmet and got into the vehicle. It is super massive. I had a lady driver who drove the truck extremely well around the track and it was thrilling experiencing the corners in the truck. On the back straight, the Prima touched 140 km/hr with ease. Of course, there was a lot of body roll felt at corners but I was amazed to see how the truck was driven on the track.
The qualifying rounds saw the racers compete for better lap times
The qualifying rounds continued happening throughout the course of the afternoon and the results were announced in the evening. The teams for the international racers were – Castrol, One World Racing, Cummins, Tata Technologies, Dealer Warriors and Dealer Daredevils. Each team had 2 trucks which makes it a total of 12 trucks. Apart from that, there were 10 trucks for the Indian drivers and 2-3 spare trucks. One of the qualifiers was a lady driver from Germany.
Another interesting part about the day was Tata unveiling the new 1000 BHP truck. It gets the same 12-litre Cummins engine that is mated to a 16-speed manual gearbox. The gearbox is actually an 8-speed unit which gets a split function. The same engine can be tuned to produce anywhere between 350-500 HP. The prototype that Tata has made produces 1040 HP and a massive 3500 Nm. The 1000 BHP truck wasn’t racing this year but it should see some action in the next couple of years. However, they did do a couple of laps in it on the track and that thing is fast! It shaved off around 12 seconds (1:35.674) from the lap time of the race trucks which produce 400 BHP.
Come 19th March, Sunday and the energy at BIC was pumping. The track was full of action right from morning. The day began with some performances from dancers and then Bollywood singer Siddarth Mahadevan came and performed some of his songs. After that, there were performances by KK and a couple of other artists too. There was also a huge troupe dancing on some beats.
Soon the different rounds of the race began. There were 4 races scheduled for 19th – Champion Class, Pro Class, Super Class and again Pro Class. All the races were 10 laps each except the last Pro Class race which had 15 laps. What was amazing was the fact that there was so much action on the track all the time. We all have seen cars and bikes race but truck racing is fun on a completely different level!
The engagement levels of the public during the race were quite high
There was a good adrenaline rush watching trucks go full throttle to overtake each other and there was quite a lot of drama too. Some of the trucks nudged each other and the way they braked hard on the track was again astounding. The brakes get heated after so much action and there is a water cooling system fitted which sprays water on the brakes when the trucks enter the pits. The trucks also come fitted with ABS.
Incidents are bound to happen in motorsports and there were a couple over here too. There was an incident where a truck banged into another truck which then spun on the track and a rear wheel came off. Another one involved a bunch of trucks nudging and kissing each other to overtake and gain a couple of positions. During the final lap of the Pro class race, the first two racers were having a really tough fight to win the pole position and the second truck lost out by just a quarter of a second!
The racing slicks are supplied by JK Tyre. Each truck gets an 80-litre fuel tank and a full tank lasts for an average of 12 laps during a race is what we were told. Tata technicians were working on the trucks before the race and making sure everything was going well. Even in-between races, whatever damages or issues cropped up in trucks were immediately worked upon by the technicians and it was amazing to see the speed and enthusiasm with which all of them were working.
It is really good on Tata Motors’ part that they’ve been working on making trucking an aspirational profession in India so that drivers get a better social status too. The company also organised a racer training program at the MMRT earlier this year where the Indian drivers went through a gruelling training session which Vicky Chandok said is the most comprehensive driver training program anywhere in the world. The Indian drivers are regular truckers and the selected ones were shortlisted from a huge list of applicants and then given all the training.
The automaker has a lot of future plans for truck racing and wants to make it big. The company has been getting good backing from partners like Castrol, Wabco, JK Tyre and Tata Motors is looking to do all it can to make Junoon-e-Trucking as big as possible. The fastest lap time clocked in 400 bhp race truck in season 4 was 1:47.204 set by David Vrsecky.
2017 Tata T1 Prima
– Champion Class Winners
1) Nagarjuna
2) Malkeet Singh
3) Bhag Chand
– Super Class Winners
1) Pitambar
2) Shivnihal Singh
3) Gurujant Singh
– Pro Class Winners
1) David Vrsecky – Team Dealer Daredevils
2) Norbert Kiss – Team Tata Technologies
3) Gerhard Korber – Team Dealer Warriors
