This just in. Team Skywalker were crowned as the World Champions 2007 at the end of an exciting and tense VISTA competition for Volvo’s truck and bus service personnel in Gothenburg on Tuesday. For the first time in history, the event became an monumental occasion with over 3,200 teams comprising a total of 12,000 competitors took part in the training and qualification stages of VISTA 2007.

All of the teams competed in a further two theoretical rounds, followed by a major ‘cull’ to reduce the field to 160 teams for the regional semi-finals. These took the form of theoretical and practical assignments that were carried out in March-April in eight cities in five parts of the world. This yielded the final selection of 28 teams from 24 countries – the absolute cream of Volvo’s worldwide service network – that went forward to contest the World Championship title.

“It’s fantastic to be able to call ourselves World Champions in service expertise,” said a delighted Roger Ihrelius, captain of Team Skywalker - who was competing in VISTA for the ninth time. “VISTA shows the level of expertise that modern trucks and workshops demand of our professional group. Volvo’s serious commitment to the competition represents major recognition for its service personnel in every workshop around the world.”

Team Skywalker will be defending their crown on autumn 2008. “That’s when VISTA 2009 kicks off – and we fully intend to defend our crown !” they shouted.

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 28th, 2007 at 5:09 am and is filed under Volvo News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.