All of the cars and team equipment were loaded into 24 containers, at Termas de Rio Hondo, and driven to Ezeiza airport in Buenos Aires. Once everything had arrived, the airport staff should have started to load the cars and equipment onto the special airfreight pallets. The only problem was that they had no experience of handling this sort of freight. It was time for the WTCC logistics team of DHL and Weitracon to show them what to do. To avoid damaging the wheels of the flight cases, the plan was to cut wooden blocks and rest the cases on these so that the wheels are up in the air. A few problems occurred with personal safety insurance for everyone who was working with wood cutting saws and driving forklifts, but once these were resolved, it was all systems go !!
After 3 days of hard work, the first plane was ready to be loaded and was ready to depart on the Tuesday evening at 2300 hours.
The next plane was due to leave on Wednesday evening but as it flew into the airport, they had an engine failure and the plane landed on only 3 engines.
Once the plane had landed, aircraft mechanics started looking for the cause of the problem. They noticed that the engine oil capacity was low so they put more oil in. An attempt was made to start the engine but now they could see that a bearing had failed and the engine and the turbine fans were covered in oil. The aircraft mechanic was in contact with the airplane company in the USA, via his mobile phone, and a decision was made that the engine would need to be replaced.
It was now 0400 hours on the Thursday morning. They could fly the aircraft, on 3 engines, back to the USA, or they could get another engine and replace it in Buenos Aires. Finally, a chief mechanic and a spare engine arrived on Friday morning from Miami,USA. His job was to supervise the 8 Argentinian, aircraft mechanics whilst they spent the next 16 hours replacing the engine.
Eventually, the aircraft was repaired, loaded up and took off for San Francisco on the Saturday.
Once the cars and equipment have cleared US customs, its a 2 hour drive to the race track at Sonoma and the WTCC show will continue. The reason why I write this blog is to highlight the logistics as we move around the race tracks of the world and to show you what a complicated job it can be. This little chapter in the WTCC calender is a perfect example.