Why are trucks so cool in Europe? For better or worse, they’re fun

Updated Nov 25, 2014
F1 poster

(Screen captures: EMC Corp.; captions are totally fictitious and for entertainment purposes only)

Be advised: If you can find something beneficial to your trucking operation from this video, do tell. Otherwise, don’t try to break this world record – 83’7” for a tractor-trailer leap – without adult supervision. And without engineers, and insurance.

Stunt coordinator Mike Ryan, in the behind-the-scenes video from Formula 1 race sponsor EMC and the Lotus F1 team, calls the recent dare a “dream stunt.”

“It’s the one thing I have not done in a big rig,” he says. “I’ve crashed them every which way you can. The one thing I haven’t done is jump a truck and trailer, and I’ve never seen it done before. I think it’s a true, legitimate first.”

Oh, and a Lotus F1 car will pass beneath the airborne rig.

[youtube TVBcEg6klJI nolink]

Ryan explains that the team gutted the interior of the tractor “to remove anything that’s flammable.” And there’s a roll cage, sliders, etc., to be added, based on Ryan’s lifetime of experience “thinking I know how these things work.”

And we have the details of the jump: calculating the vehicle weight, speed, ramp angle, etc. – and building an infrastructure to support the math.

“I think it’s extremely critical to hit the ramp as straight as possible,” Ryan says.

Unless you’ve ever blasted a big rig up a narrow jump ramp (think along the lines of hitting an oil change rack at high speed) , I suggest you not question Ryan’s emphasizing the obvious. File it under: Easier said than done.

Of course, Ryan is best known for his assaults on Pikes Peak for Freightliner, but here he’s wheeling a Renault, which is owned by the Volvo Group. In the model demo, however, he’s using a toy truck and trailer touting Detroit. Talk about confusing product placement.

But, I must say, the hero isn’t Ryan and the truck: It’s the race car driver who thought, sure, I can slip under a flying semi.

And Ryan admits as much, not that his own gig is routine.

The EMC/Lotus team receive Guinness World Record certification.The EMC/Lotus team receive Guinness World Record certification.

“I’m pretty excited; it’s adrenaline, of course,” he says. “Really, I’m worried about everybody else.”

Stunt driver Martin Ivanov, at the wheel of the F1 car, concedes “it was scary,” and otherwise “joy and happiness” when he hit the mud and spun after crossing under the rig –  joy that he wasn’t made a mud pie, I presume.

Whether Ivanov’s brief post-jump comments in the video were limited because of his English or because he urgently needed to change his drawers, I can’t be sure.

While I doubt FMCSA would approve, the video does make trucking, you know, kinda cool. Heh-heh.

For the record, my sister-in-law – who loyally boosts my Google Analytics numbers – wanted to know why I didn’t write more fun stuff like I used to. So, in a last-minute plea for a jar of jalapeno jelly at Thanksgiving, this post is for you, Sylvia.