The latest round of New Hollands Grand Prix event took place last weekend in the beautiful city of Turin in Italy and Digger was there to capture the competition.
The tests were held in front of the Torino Esposizioni building which is on the margins of Parco del Valentino, near the Polytechnic's School of Architecture - an evocative location for an event that has garnered increasing success year after year. Five teams of operators took part this year representing Germany, Italy, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.
The competitors took part in a total of five tests each throughout the event which were mostly against the clock.
In "Safety Penalty" the operators were using a New Holland E80MSR crawler midi excavator (operating weight: 8300 kg) to take 5 penalty shots at goal in a timed period of 4 minutes. The operator was allowed one machine rotation to strike the New Holland-Juventus football and then had to return the bucket to its initial start up point to stop the clock.
This was a fiercely competitive game combining the art of machine operating and the other big passion in many mens lives football, the team members were very vocal as they encouraged thier fellow teamates from the sidelines.
The top three in this event were in reverse order..
3rd place. Manuel Calero from Spain with a score of 90 points.
2nd place. Adam Howarth from UK with a score of 78 points.
1st place. Julio Antonio Gil from Spain with a score of 74 points.
In "Hard Hat" the contestants had a tough challenge on their hands! Using a New Holland E16 mini excavator (operating weight: 1450 kg) with a drop chain and hook hanging from the bucket the task was took pick up the hard hats using the hook and drop them into one of two different sized oil drums from event sponsor Petronas.
Once again the operators had 4 minutes to get as many hats in the drums as possible to achieve the best score with various penalties to be applied along the way if a drum was knocked over for example. This challenge did give the operators some problems as the hard hats had a tendancy to roll around on the floor and at times looked very frustrating for them.
The top three in the Hard Hat test were..
3rd place. Arturo Zaccone of Italy with a score of 66 points.
2nd place. Gavin Wood of UK with a score of 37 points.
1st place. Talovic Musidin of Switzerland with a score of 20 points.
In "Safety Belt" the competitiors were at the controls of a New Holland L170 skid steer loader (operating weight: 3220 kg) in which they were required to lift a pallet with a bucket of water on it filled to a height of 25cm. They then had to do two laps of a marked out course in under 4 minutes whilst trying to prevent the water from spilling over the top of the bucket.
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Here we see UK contestant Gavin Wood getting to grips with the ramp along the course!
On completion of the two laps the pallet had to be returned to is starting position and the machine parked in its starp up location, the judges then measured the remaining water in the bucket and a 3 second penalty was applied for every cm of water lost during the round.
Top three competitors in this event were ..
3rd place. Rene Pasewaldt from Germany with a score of 156 points.
2nd place. Manuel Calero from Spain with a score of 144 points.
1st place. Julio Antonio Gil from Spain with a score of 141 points.
"Dangerous Sign" involved a New Holland E22.2SR mini excavator (operating weight: 2550 kg) in which the contestants had to knock down six numbered wooden blocks in a numerical order and in the fastest time possible without touching the metal boundary posts.
The operators were allowed 4 minutes to complete this trial but of course with such a high standard of operators attending the event such a lot of time was simply not required. Penalties in this event included 10 seconds for every metal post knocked and if the blocks were knocked down in the wrong order then that competitor received 120 seconds.
Top three in this event were..
3rd place. Adam Howarth from UK with a score of 22 points
2nd place Ewan Irvine from UK with a joint score of 22 points
1st place Luigi Miglietta from Italy with an amazing score of 17 points!
Safety in the workplace was a big feature at this years event and a new development for the 2009 edition was the sponsorship from INAIL, the Italian national institute for work-related injury insurance, which testifies to New Holland Construction's commitment to safety.
The safety message was well represented in the "Warning Label" test in which working as a team the competitors had to correctly place warning signs in the correct place on a New Holland machine.
The top three in this test were ..
3rd place. Germany with 128 points.
2nd place. Italy with 122 points.
1st place. Spain with 102 points.
Here we see the victorious Spanish team.
At the awards evening the Champion of the Champions, was announced in which the combined scores of all four tests were taken into account , the top three positions went, in the following order, to: Manuel Calero (Spain), Gavin Wood (United Kingdom) and Cristian Tanera (Italy).
Spain also won the Special Media Award as Best Country, and Best Individual prize went to Rene Pasewaldt from Germany. The United Kingdom was awarded a special prize for Fair Play.
This years event was also open to the public and was very much treated as a family day out by the local population. The children certainly seemed to be enjoying the toy diggers in the play area.
The crowds were further more excited when two players from New Holland sponsored Juventus FC visited the event to try their hand at taking a penalty with the E16 mini excavator.
"He shoots he scores" !
And finally a team photo of the UK competitiors.
From left to right..Adam Howarth, Gavin Wood, Ewan Irvine, and team coach Glenn Lindsay.
I would like to thank the New Holland team for putting on such a great event and for the amazing hospitality that was given to us during our time in Italy.
See you next year ..Ciao !
