Truck & Driver UK – August 2019

(^104) Summer 2019 Truck & Driver
TEAM T&D
What weekends
are made of
Only Russell could park up to wait on a trailer
and find himself in the middle of a truck show!
W
hile waiting for a
change-over of
trailers at Santander,
northern Spain, I
stumbled across a truck show
run by the Club Camion
Cantabria – and boy, did they
give me a warm welcome and
loads of hospitality! Everyone,
from organisers, competitors to
visitors, couldn’t have been any
Reigning in Spain; above, Russ (left) celebrates his Truck of the Show award
RUSSELL OLIVER
more welcoming – and I even
managed to walk away with Truck
of the Show!
I didn’t actually know anything
about the event. I was intending
to park in the truckstop as usual
but, when I arrived, I was told I
couldn’t park there as an event
was on. I asked if I could park
somewhere else and walk in to
see the trucks, but the organisers
suggested I should bring mine
into the show. They helped me
get the trailer dropped, took me
to a local truck wash and I got to
work polishing.
The show took over the entire
village, with different sections for
classics, American and so on.
People were being brought in by
the coachload, and trucks from
all over Spain were there. What I
first thought was only a local
event was clearly a lot bigger!
Everyone went for food at the
same time in an enormous
marquee. A huge paella was
served up followed by a dessert,
both of which were fantastic.
So much interest was shown
in my truck, the S730. Some of
the drivers reckon us Brits are
crazy the way we go about our
cleaning, taking wheels off and
crawling underneath the chassis!
There was real interest both
in the truck and in me. At one
point I had five teachers
speaking to me, asking me all
about the life of a lorry driver and
life on the road, it’s impact on
family and so on.
It’s one of the best
weekends I’ve had this year,
made even better by the fact
it happened totally at
random. The local authority
really embraced having the
trucks there and I wonder if
something on the same level
would work in the UK, with
trucks basically taking over a
small town for a festival one
weekend a year.