TRANSLATION

Sunday 31 March 2013

Entry to Morocco.

Road to Marrakech
It is 0400 hours and it is raining very hard in Algeciras. My journey to the truck parking place is not very long but when I reach the truck, I am soaking wet. A quick change of clothes and then I hang my wet clothes around the inside of the truck. With the heating system on high, my cab starts to resemble a hot and damp laundry. Myself and the other 7 trucks that are with me drive through the maze of roads in the port and we stop in front of the ferry. The chief boat loader signals me to drive onto the boat and then indicates that I should drive up a very steep ramp, to an upper deck. I tell him that you cant do this with a race trailer that sits so low to the road. He consults another man and a sensible decision is made and I should now drive onto onto a lower deck. Once we are on the boat, we complete an immigration card and go and get our passports stamped.

The trucks are parked very close together on the ferry to Morocco
The weather is making the sea quite rough and when the ferry arrives in Tangiers and the ramp is lowered onto the quayside, I can see the ferry is rising and falling approximately 2 metres due to the waves. Driving off safely involves timing your journey, down the ramp, at just the right moment when it is level and not at an acute angle. Unfortunately, one the trucks sustains some damage to one of the trailer landing legs. There is little we can do to make it any easier for us to drive off. I have mentioned before in my blog that these race trailers are not designed for all sort of driving conditions.They are designed to look good and to carry the cars and equipment. The skills that we have as drivers of these sort of race trailers can only be learnt through experience and talking to other Truckies. There is no book of instructions.
A damaged trailer landing leg which happened as the truck drove off the ferry
Once we were off the ferry, we parked up and waited for our shipping agent to collect our paperwork. In previous years we have had to wait many hours but this time, we waited only 2 hours. We then collected a piece of paper which has a barcode printed on it. This allows us to exit the parking area and drive to the customs area. We did have a delay due to the high numbers of trucks in the customs area but we were soon driving through the port.

The customs area is the same area that we use when we re-enter the port. I will tell you more about this when we leave Morocco.

And here is its foot.
I can only describe the activity in this area as CHAOS.
There are trucks being turned around, by the customs men, in such confined conditions and I personally had another trailer being moved about 2cm away from my trailer. My heart stopped as I could only hope that the other truck driver did not scratch the side of my race trailer. The port is huge so I do not know why they insist on trying to process all of the trucks in such a small space.
I was directed to try and park next to a fence and a customs man asked to look inside the trailer. When he was inside, he had a look at my carnet and then proceeded to ask me questions in French. I do not know how he understood what was written on the carnet as it was all in English !!!!
I shut and locked the trailer and with a little Moroccan wave of the hand by a policeman, I WAS FREE TO LEAVE THE PORT.
Total time from the ferry to getting on the road to Marrakech was 4 hours. UNBELIEVABLE.
Why this has not happened in previous years I do not know, but I was much, much happier.
The long drive to Marrakech is always easy as there is no real bad traffic. The only dangers are the many trucks and cars that have had a breakdown and then block one of the traffic lanes while they are being repaired.
I shall leave you with some more pictures from inside the port.
The customs men take a look at a BMW

The random chaos that is the Tangiers customs area

Honda truck being checked by customs

I know the way to Marrakech and also I know which direction Mecca is now

Friday 29 March 2013

Waiting at Algeciras port.

My journey from Monza to Algeciras is complete. It was nice to leave the cold Italian weather behind me and whilst it is not perfect sunshine in Spain, at least it is much warmer. The driving conditions have been good and there have been alot of cars on the Autovia, due to the Easter holidays. The excellent Spanish road network has enabled me to average 700kms a day. I have just looked at all my road toll tickets and it has cost my company 319 Euros to travel from Italy to Spain.

 I have taken my carnet and other paperwork to the customs office and I am now waiting for this to be checked, stamped and returned to me. I cannot buy a ticket for the boat to Morocco until this is done.
I have met some of the WTCC and Auto GP Truckies who have arrived already and they are waiting for their customs clearance as well.
There is a ban on trucks using some of the Spanish roads during this holiday period. The border crossings are closed for trucks and there is a 100km exclusion zone around Madrid. There are also a couple of localised truck bans around Spain but I think that all of the other race trucks are already in Spain so they will be unaffected. The only team that may have a problem is the Lada team. After being forced to return to their factory in France to rebuild their cars. If they try to come into Spain before the truck ban is finished on Monday evening, they may have to be very polite to the Spanish police and tell them that they have to be at the race in Morocco.
I have filled up the diesel tanks and the AdBlue tank, ready for the 1300km journey to Marrakesh and back to the port. The fuel prices in Morocco are cheaper than Spain but I do not want to have a problem with my credit cards not being accepted or not having enough cash money to pay for fuel. There is a Shell filling station, which some trucks have used before, on the motorway but the other filling stations are Moroccan companies so I think it is better to be safe than sorry.
This winter has seen many of the teams not doing any winter testing. The trucks have sat still and their first big journey was to Monza. Unfortunately for some teams, they had problems with their trucks. Reports of gearbox problems, failed engine sensors, brake problems and three tyre punctures caused unnecessary headaches for some of the Truckies. The new Honda team seem to have 2 new Renault trucks for this season and the Think Tank guys who put up the advertising banners at the circuits, also had a couple of brand new 500HP Scanias which look very nice indeed. BLING BLING.
Add caption


Tuesday 26 March 2013

Morocco is calling us.

The WTCC and the Auto GP trucks have been driving from Monza down to the south of Spain, ready to go across to Morocco. Unfortunately, one of the trucks suffered a huge tyre blowout, not long after leaving Monza. Maybe they should use Yokohama tyres and not Dunlop!!
Once again, there are concerns for the customs procedures when we get to Tangiers. Some teams will be going by boat from Italy and others will depart for Morocco from Spain
To be honest, getting into Morocco is the easy part and we have been in contact with the Moroccan customs and are hopeing that the customs formalities will be quick and efficient.
UNLIKE PREVIOUS YEARS.
We do have a big problem because of the Easter holidays, which in a religious country like Spain, means that the shipping agents and Spanish customs will have the minimum amount of staff working. So we are trying to keep in touch with all the teams, the hospitality and television crews to ensure that we are all happy and ready to catch the boat.
When the WTCC raced in Turkey, in 2005 and 2006, we were helped with all the shipping and customs by a company called Billets and it was a very successful partnership which speeded up the whole process. We are invited to these countries to race and put on a show and whilst we must respect the customs procedures, it is not good to be treated the same as a truck that is importing or exporting goods for money. Our time schedule is very tight and delays should not be in the equation.
I had a conversation with some other Truckies last night concerning when we are requested to part company with our passports. A passport belongs to the government of the country who issued it and we are only the holders of the passport. When we get on the boat to Morocco, we have to take our passport to a policeman on the boat. He puts our details into a laptop, stamps the passport and it is then returned to us. We should not have to give our passports to anyone else other than to show a policeman or government official that we have been granted an entry stamp. It is a little bit worrying that we are forced to relinquish our passports when completing the customs process. Who looks at them and where they go to, I cannot say. We obviously have concerns about passport fraud but I hope that this practice does not happen again, this year.
The Lada team really have alot of work to do as they have had to go back to Magny Cours to prepare another car, after the shocking accident in Monza, and get the trucks back down to Spain to catch the boat to Morocco.I now have a chance to relax for a few days and to get rid of my awful cold that I seem to have brought with me from a very wet Monza and I will be out and about, taking photographs and chatting to the other Truckies.





Friday 22 March 2013

Flat out to Monza....part 2

So much work has meant that I have been too busy to write anything for my blog but now I have some time, so please continue reading.

My journey to Monza got off to a bad start. Not only did I have to leave one day early but I was then left waiting for 3 hours in Germany because the promotional equipment had not been delivered. Therefore, I had to collect everything and to take it all to Monza. This little detour cost us time, extra money for diesel and road tolls and is probably the most expensive "courier service" you could use. I hope this does not happen again to me. When I finally get loaded up, there is not much driving time left so I am forced to stay in Luxembourg overnight, before driving through France towards the Alps and the Mont Blanc Tunnel. It is 300 euros to go through the tunnel but saves me alot of time and diesel. The views as you approach the Alps and also when you emerge on the Italian side are beautiful and it makes me realise how lucky I am to do this job.
Despite being late in the evening, I decide that I will just have enough driving time to get to Monza circuit. Even though it is late at night when I arrive, the traffic into Monza is very, very busy. The circuit has 2 entrances and the first one that I try is closed. Now comes the fun part. I am in a very narrow road and the only way is forward and then take a couple of left turns before I can get back out to a bigger road. The last left hand turn I make is as tight as you can get get with a 16.5 metre long race truck. I have parked cars, a wall and road signs all around me. I have to constantly get in and out of the truck to check that I do not hit anything then drive forward, stop, get out again and check that I have not collided with anything. It takes 10 minutes before I finally get road the corner and reach the safety of a bigger road. At 2300 hours, I am parked at Monza circuit and I can relax and think about getting a good nights sleep.
Iveco Stralis"leading truck"

Everything is now set up and the cars are ready to start practicing tomorrow(Saturday).
For the first time ever, a truck has been designated as the "Leading car" for the WTCC races. How they will do this, I do not know but it is big and orange and you definately will not miss it. I hope they have taken the speed restrictor off the truck otherwise it will be driving around at 90 kmh. A truck has very fast acceleration when it is does not pull a trailer and I think this 500 HP monster will not disappoint. I will leave you with some pictures of the Truckies arriving in Monza and lets hope we have some good racing this weekend.

A broken truck for one of the teams








Lada team unload the cars.

Tom Boardman reversing his race truck up to the garage.

3 trucks for the JAS Honda team

Seat team doing a blind side reverse...very difficult
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           .



Wednesday 20 March 2013

Flat out to Monza.

Lada truck at Magny Cours

New Lada being loaded on the truck, ready for Monza



We stopped here for a coffee in France

Heading towards Mont Blanc

New truck graphics for RML/Chevrolet team
I am too busy with my work to write my blog so I will just leave you with a few recent pictures. Normal blogging services will be resumed shortly.
Sorry.

Friday 15 March 2013

Winter returns to Hungary.

The Zengo team have been in contact to let me know that despite the snow, they will not have to worry about their racetruck and the new Honda car struggling to get to Monza. The team have left the truck in Italy after the recent test session. This was obviously a very good idea as you can see from the pictures that they sent to me.
The weather in Hungary has taken a turn for the worse with major snowstorm and violent gusts of wind forcing thousands of people to spend the night in their cars or roadside buildings after being stranded on major Hungarian motorways. Snowdrifts up to 3 meters (10 feet) high and strong winds blocked off major roads across the country Multiple crashes across the M1 and M7 highways between Budapest and Vienna led to the traffic jams. Today, rescuers cut across guardrails to allow vehicles to leave the jammed highway onto makeshift roads. Army and police tanks were being used to help the rescue efforts. Some 5,700 cars were stranded on the roads and queues were over 12km long.
They do have some concerns for the travel arrangements for the junior team which is racing in the ETCC at the same event as the WTCC but the Hungarians are used to dealing with big snow falls. As we all know, you cannot predict the weather 100% but I hope that all of the Zengo team will arrive safely in Monza next week. It is going to be a great, season opening race with 25 cars on the grid, new teams and last years world champion, Rob Huff in a car that he is going to have to drive hard to be at the front.








Sunday 10 March 2013

What does a Truckie do for his money?

I would like to tell you a story from a Truckies point of view. It is a story of what we do to earn our money and live the lives that we lead. It is a story that I have had to shorten due to the many tasks that we do and also because there is stuff that I am sure I will forget to write down. We have become Truckies in the motor sport business as we have decided that being a mechanic, an ordinary truck driver or any other job is not for us. It may be our destiny in life or maybe we don,t want to sit in an office all day. Whatever our reason, this is just some of the stuff that we do in our job, every year.


If you are one of the many people who tune into Eurosport,s excellent TV coverage of the WTCC, you have it easy. Preparing to watch the race means turning on the television and sitting down on your favourite sofa or armchair. But it is not as simple as that for us.
The WTCC teams will have been getting ready for this since the car was returned back to their factory after the last race. Incredibly, even if it is a race in our home country, we will have team members working for many hours before the event preparing the cars. And when we have the "flyaway" races, using container freight, we will have spent even more time. Cars will be stripped down and some preparation work done before the cars are loaded up and sent to another country. When they arrive at their next destination, this pre-race work will be continued until everything is perfect again. Accident damage must also be dealt with and this is guaranteed to make teams very unhappy due to the extra workload.
Gone are the days when the truck rolled up to the garage, two cars and and some toolboxes were taken off, and away we went. It is not unusual for the race car transporters, which we use for the European races, to average 30,000 kilometres each as we drive through Europe. Depending on the size of our team, we may have only one truck but most teams have two. Last year, Chevrolet even had three trucks!!
Each team obviously has its own transport crew who are part of the operation of taking equipment to a race. Regardless of our job, either as a truck driver or assistant, once we get to the race, we are part of the team over the race weekend.
The race mechanics will have a four or five day round trip (Wednesday-Sunday) a 'Truckie', as we are known, may have to drive out and return with his transporter, so we will spend between eight and ten days going to a race and coming back. All of these has to be done within the laws of the EU Drivers Hours Regulations which anyone who drives a truck must adhere to in Europe.
With all the travelling it would not make sense to have to have small diesel  tanks, and the refuelling bill can be rather high. A tank takes 500-600 litres, and can cost on average 800-900 Euros, Some of the trucks can have a second fuel tank which can take the total fuel capacity to 1500 litres. With such large amounts of diesel, we can travel from the factory around Europe without needing to refuel. Sometimes, this helps keep the costs down for the teams as we can fill up with diesel in a country that is cheaper than where the team is based. In 2013 the prices across Europe do not vary so much as they did 5 or 10 years ago but if we can save some money, it all helps.
Racing in your home country should be easy but ironically all the teams, have to go through the same complex packing procedure for their home race as they do for races in the further flung reaches of Europe like Hungary, Portugal and Italy.
Then there are other complications the fans never see; when we race in Morocco and Russia in 2013, each truck has to have carnets for every single item on board - that is basically a detailed manifesto of the contents. Since the borders in Europe are now open, we can move from Germany to Italy or Hungary to Slovakia without needing a carnet. We do not have to stop and wait, for a long time, at the borders while our paperwork is checked by customs officials. This is much better for the Truckies and for those of us who can remember crossing borders before the European Union was formed, we would not wish to return to the old days.

Then there are the "flyaways", as they are known in the WTCC fraternity, (Brazil, USA, China, Japan and Macau). A team will typically use one or two containers. The bill for transporting that around the world will run to thousands of euros for each team. The teams freight operations are handled by Weitracon and DHL. After the last race in Europe, containers will arrive at the circuit and everything that was transported in our trucks is put into the containers. Some teams construct a mezzanine floor in their containers so that equipment can be packed away whilst the car or cars sit safely underneath. Any additional freight which the teams want to send can be taken to Antwerp, in Belgium and shipped at a later date. The Yokohama tyres are shipped on a staggered time basis to each "flyaway" race. Air freight services are also available but at a very high cost. The WTCC is not Formula 1 and we just do not have their big finances and sponsorship to pay for this.

The container freight is hardly as simple as putting it on a ship from A to B. Hundreds of tonnes of freight has to be loaded and unloaded. Everything has to have customs clearance and then it has to be transported from the container port to the paddock. The operation is extremely complex and whilst delays happen and ships have been late arriving at their destination, we haven,t missed a race since the WTCC championship started.
Teams must ensure that every single part for the car is available and for it to work perfectly, if a car is to get through two days of practice and qualifying and then the race on Sunday where the points are earned.
For that reason there has to be more than one spare for almost every single part including engines. We also have welding equipment, fluids for the cars, repair jigs and thousands of nuts, bolts, cable ties and electrical supplies. Allowance has to be made, too, for the fact that every racing driver could have an accident or several accidents and damage the bodywork. More spares are carried for the difficult and dangerous street circuit of Macau where the crash barriers are so close they are just asking to be hit. Spare splitters and front and rear wings are essential items in the freight along with spare parts for almost every eventuality.
Anyone who has seen a race team at an airport may have seen team members standing in line at the airport to check-in carrying things that looks suspiciously like a heavily wrapped drive shaft, suspension parts or steering racks. Anything that is not in the containers has to be hand carried to the races by whatever means possible. Sometimes these parts are newly updated or rebuilt items which have come from the teams factory. I have had many a strange encounter at airport customs when you are questioned about why you are carrying parts of a race car as your luggage.
The quantity of parts is so vast and they all have to be accounted for. To make sure they are not too old and close to failure some parts also have a "life" which is basically a "use by date". These include driveshafts and suspension parts which are safety critical items.
The freight has to include tools, generators, compressors, 3 phase electrical cabling for the garages, lighting marketing equipment, sensitive test equipment packed in foam-cushioned boxes, the public relations materials, promotional items, team clothing and overalls, maybe a fridge and definitely tea and coffee making facilities.
When race teams first started using purpose built, race car transporters, they probably carried about 2 tonnes of equipment. In 2013, our trucks can carry 20 tonnes. Today the size of the trucks is determined by the governments and the roads. So instead of getting even bigger trucks, teams just have more of them.
In days-gone-by equipment would be packed into a truck until it was full and then the next rolled up to the door. For the last 30 years transporters have become tailor-made affairs, designed down to the last centimetre to take the cars, with the surfaces where the wheels rest also used as worktops. On each side are cabinets packed with spare parts and consumables. Such is the need for space that some trucks have special "belly lockers" underneath the transporter.
Loading and packing a truck has become a science for a very good reason. This is the responsibility of the Truckie. If a special part is needed in the middle of qualifying it is no good someone having to hunt around in a trailer for an hour. Every part has to be within easy reach in case the worst happens, and it is normally the Truckie whose job is to make sure it is not only there but also to know where exactly it is stored.
The amount of preparation that goes into a season of travelling is staggering and the operation of packing and travelling is only the beginning. Once the race car transporters arrive they have to park up into their designated parking area behind the garage. Then the unloading operation can begin.
The image that the teams want to convey to their sponsors, fans and the TV crews begins with the setting up of our garages. Some of the heaviest and largest boxes that the teams carry around the world contain special boarding that is erected to create false walls and partitions for working and private areas in the depths of the garage. This boarding will have very expensive graphics showing the team logos,etc and great care is taken to avoid damage during the many times it is erected and taken down again. Flooring for the garages is another large and bulky item that must be carried around to each race. The teams attention to detail includes concealing from view all cables on the floor. The construction of the garage may include the installation of an overhead gantry system to take air hoses and electric cables. In the garages we connect televisions so that we can see the timing system display and live television feed from Eurosport. Surprisingly, no-one has any sound coming from the television. We have all the information that we need and don,t need to hear the commentary from Eurosport,s Martin Havens. Large repeater aerials are erected on top of the trucks or placed on top of the garages to enable communication with the team radios, the cars and drivers. All of this communication system must be tested before we use it. Dedicated radio frequencies are used so it does not interfere with the police or emergency services. The teams, the TV crews, the FIA, the organisers and the circuit personnel will all have radio communications so the airwaves are very, very busy.
And all of this happens before the cars go onto the race track. If you all think that the Truckies just drive nice, big trucks and go sightseeing like tourists when we visit so many countries each year, please think again!


                                   But the view from the paddock can be very pretty at times.



Thursday 7 March 2013

Cold and wet testing in Europe

Munnich team at the Slovakiaring.
All over Europe, the WTCC Truckies have been driving along the various motorway roads to enable the teams to complete their pre-season tests. Snow has made driving difficult in the mountains of Spain and also through southern Germany and Hungary. Our trucks and trailers are show pieces for the team that we work for and it makes you cry when you see them covered in dirty water and salt which we cannot avoid in winter time. When we arrive at the circuit for testing, put your warm clothes on and get out the hosepipe and brushes and start washing them off. Whilst this is okay in a warmer climate, it hasn,t been fun for the guys who have been testing in colder climates like the Slovakiaring and Monza.
Bamboo at Rockingham
Meanwhile in the UK, The Truckies from RML and Bamboo have been testing in the cold and damp conditions at Brands Hatch and Rockingham.
This season will see some new and different trucks in the paddock from Munnich, PBRacing and the RML trucks with their new colours.(I am waiting to be sent some pictures). Despite talking to the Spanish Seat teams, nobody is sure whether they will have new colours and graphics but I will be first at Monza with new pictures so keep following my blog.
It will be interesting to see how the Munnich team manage to transport 3 cars and all their equipment in 2 trucks. I think they will struggle for space inside the trucks. The new teams that start in WTCC see how the other teams garages are set up and very quickly start buying more garage equipment and boarding. But they never seem to think how they will transport it all safely and without damaging anything
.
The cost for using the trucks in Europe just goes up and up. Diesel and AdBlue prices are rising and the road tolls for the motorways have been increased. I have not sat down and tried to see how much more money we will have to spend this year, but at a guess, it will cost upwards of 2000 Euros per truck more than in 2012.
My least favourite place to go to, Morocco, looks set to still go ahead and I have been hearing so many stories about driving to Russia. Plans are still being made for these two races so I will bring you more details as I get them. As a Truckie, I look forward to the more challenging places that we visit but the uncertainty will also put grey hairs on your head.
                                                                    Zengo and Honda in Italy