In the 2011 season, eleven of the twenty teams going to the starting grid in the European Championship drove vehicles from MAN. They were cheered on by enthusiastic fans, for example at Nürburgring, where 212,000 spectators turned out to watch. The first championship win for Jochen Hahn is a milestone for the team. Since 2008, Jochen Hahn has been driving an MAN TGS 18.480. The origins of Team Hahn Racing go back to the year 1996. Team boss Konni Hahn was the driver in the early years until handing over the wheel to son Jochen in 2000.
Starting in the 2006 season, there is a single, uniform racing class: the near-series race truck.
In 2000, a new name appears on the race-truck scene: Egon Allgäuer. The Austrian, who hails from Vorarlberg, blazed the trail in driving the first MAN TG 410 A as a racing vehicle. This was in 2001 and Allgäuer took second place in the championship at his first attempt. For most of the next decade, Team Allgäuer remains one of the dominant teams, at times entering up to four MAN-based vehicles in races.
2001 In this year, MAN wins every title that FIA has to offer. Fritz Kreutzpointner, Markus Bösiger and Antonio Albacete score a 1-2-3 in the overall drivers' standings in the Super Race Trucks Class, en-suring MAN’s dominant victory in the manufacturers' standings. With this success, MAN ends its participation in the Super Race Trucks Class and re-organises its truck sport activities with effect from 2002.
After his earliest experience of truck sport at the Dakar Rally, Lutz Bernau from Utting on Ammersee first competes in a truck race in 1985, at the second Grand Prix du Camion in Le Castellet. In 1995 he constructs his first race truck based on an MAN. He ends his driving career in 2005 and has since then been successfully managing other drivers as a team owner. Under his direction, Antonio Albacete wins his first European championship in the very same year.
1994 The division into three classes (A up 11.9 litres, B up to 14.1 litres and C up to 18.5 litres) applying up to then is changed to two: Race Trucks and Super Race Trucks. Race Trucks -the "small" class - are based on series vehicles, while the "big" Super Race Trucks are racing prototypes with special chassis, racing engines delivering up to 1,600 hp and other technical specialities. In this year, the series is officially sanctioned by the FIA.
1991 First European Championship (Class C) for MAN Phoenix, driver: Gerd Körber (D). In the nineties, up to 60 teams congregate on the tracks over ten race weekends. Always to be seen there: seven trucks of the MAN brand.
1989 Bickel Tuning builds the MAN Phoenix. This was specially constructed as a truck with a bonnet, licensed for both road use and racing. First outing was in November 1989 in Donington / England.
Under the striking, angular bonnet of the six-tonner was an 18.4-litre V-10 twin-turbo engine delivering 1,300 hp and a torque of 4,600 Nm. Twelve race trucks and a few variants for on-road use were con-structed.
For safety reasons, the end of the 1989 season sees the introduction of a speed limit of 160 kilometres per hour.
1985 The start of a new European motor-sport series: Truck Racing.
First race at Nürburgring, simultaneously a new record number of spectators since the Ring was re-opened in 1983. The announcement on Sunday morning, 9am: "Sold out, 155,000 spectators!"
1981 First truck race at Le Mans / France.