Alles Gute zum Geburtstag..Happy Birthday

                                                                                                                                                                       Photo courtesy of Photo 4

Everyone has birthdays, but I just have to give a quick mention to my good friend Hansi, the hardworking Truckie from Wiechers Sport. He always talks non stop to me in German and I really do try my hardest to listen and undeerstand. I wish you all the best.

Curitiba weather and Truckies who get it wrong.

A twelve hour flight to Sao Paulo and a delayed flight from Sao Paulo to Curitiba. Yet another case of air pollution helping bring the WTCC to the motorsport fans around the world.

Container unloading in Curitiba

 It is winter time in Brazil and cold weather and rain seems to have taken even the Brazilians by surprise. Some of the Truckies have been here for a few days already, but at least they can prepare their garages at a less hurried pace. It is always good to see old faces again and talk motor racing. Some of the Truckies have been testing at Snetterton, Pembrey and Mira in the UK. While others have been at racetracks in Italy and Spain. Some of the guys have even had to move their whole workshop to another building. A major task in itself. A lucky few, and it is only a few, have just been enjoying the time off between Antwerp container loading and the race in Brazil. The prospect of warmer weather by the weekend has put a bit of a smile on some faces. Dry weather means slick tyres and a slightly easier workload for those Truckies who also look after the car,s tyres.

Proteam cars

Tyre testing in progress

Something happened today which highlights the importance off having skilled and knowledgeable Truckies in a team. One team needed petrol for the grid trolley generators and bottle compressors. As they did not have a hire car, they used a car from another team and offered to get petrol for them as well. A simple task......or is it?
In Brazil, many car engines are adapted to run on ALCOOL. Brazil is considered to have the world's first sustainable fuel economy and the biofuel industry leader, a policy model for other countries; and its sugarcane ethanol is cheap and widely available. Now the Truckie on this petrol buying mission does not know this and returns to the circuit with several litres of ALCOOL.

OH DEAR !!!! BIG MISTAKE.

What would you choose, A or G?????

The job of a Truckie can not be learnt from a book. Trial and error, or a good teacher, or even my blog are the only real options. A Truckie might be asked to go to a supermarket to buy sugar for the team in Hungary. Do you know the Hungarian word for sugar? They might have to buy nuts or bolts in China. Can you do this?
And they might have to buy petrol in Brazil...........
What happens when the team are working late at night in the garages and you need to feed them? In your own language, it is easy to telephone for pizza and have it delivered. But can you do this in Spain when you do not speak spanish? It is the Truckie who is normally sent out to drive on unknown roads, in an unknown country, and buy food for the team. A Truckie who can do this sort of job is an integral part of a race team team abroad. It is a simple job that can be very, very challenging and many people would not even want to attempt it.
The Truckie who has bought ALCOOL instead of petrol, has just learnt another lesson and was sent away again to buy the right stuff.
Truckies are renowned in the paddock for talking to many people in other teams. It is a good way to share information and constantly learn. A Truckie who does not talk to other people is a Truckie who knows nothing.

Garage set up in Curitiba

Some teams have completed their garages early.

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Airports, Security and Planes

I thought that I would use some of my time to have a moan before I head off to Brazil.

AIRPORTS, SECURITY AND PLANES.
Having to say goodbye to driving a gorgeous truck and now relying on airplanes just does not give me a thrill. Personally, I think the airplane experience has gone downhill, rapidly.
I don't like the discomfort and tackiness of it. The premise that to get from place to another, you have to sit crammed in a little metal tube staring out of a tiny window. And worse, you have to use airports, and if you're unlucky, possibly two or three.
Is there anywhere in life as bad as an airport? Well, let's not fool ourselves. There are prisons and hospitals and morgues and concentration camps and Blackpool and Kentucky Fried Chicken. But most of those you don't have to experience simply to go to work.
The intended purpose of airport security is to protect us, the fare paying passengers, from them, the psychopaths who want to blow up aeroplanes, or hijack them and fly them to somewhere nice, or hijack them and fly them into buildings. The real purpose of airport security is to make us feel as if something is being done to prevent bad stuff from happening to us. If airport security was actually about security, they would spend more effort on stopping the baggage handlers from stealing from the luggage. I guess there's at least some hope that poorly constructed bombs might detonate prematurely when they're being tossed around by the ground crew.
Typical airport security precautions include:

• X-raying luggage -- I presume that somebody looks at the X-ray screens, though in my experience the staff are normally too busy chatting to be paying much attention, and in any case, how are they're supposed to distinguish a laptop computer from a bomb built into a laptop computer.
• frisking anybody attractive or who looks as if they might find the experience embarrassing, 
• and don't forget that confiscating someone’s toothpaste is going to keep us safe. This is too ridiculous to entertain.
  
  

Duty Free Shopping is awful. As a resident of a modern western country, where smoking is banned in so many places, including airports, it is rare to see quite so many cigarettes gathered together in one place. What I really don't understand is why anyone buys consumer electronics in the airport. It's overpriced and you're probably not going to be allowed to use it on the plane, and if it goes wrong, are you really going to take it back to whichever airport hellhole you happened to be flying from when you suddenly felt a deep-seated urge to buy an electric razor or an MP3 player, or a hand-held bloody computer? And the bookshops...it's said that the majority of people in the world, buy only one book a year, at the airport bookshop, just before they catch the aeroplane.

So, eventually, after surviving Duty Free for however long it takes for the airline to find its aeroplane, put the luggage on it, find the crew and figure out how to get people on board the aeroplane in -- let's not kid ourselves -- a not very efficient manner, you find yourself on board.
At this point the airline will make some token effort to reassure you that flying is completely safe. It's crashing that's dangerous, but they try to make out that that's safe too. This is particularly irritating. The operation of a life jacket is explained. Have any significant number of people ever survived an air crash into water? I think not. Perhaps they didn't remember to pull the toggles on their life jackets or forgot that they could top them up by blowing through the little tube. We are told to stow our luggage in the over-head lockers so that in the event of a crash it will fall out and fly about the cabin knocking peoples' heads off. The brace position is explained. The one thing that we are not told -- and which is, apparently, the only piece of advice which will genuinely do you any good in an emergency -- is to count the number of rows of seats between you and the nearest exit. The point is that when the aeroplane catches fire, the cabin will fill with smoke and at that point no amount of expensive cabin-floor strip lighting is going to help you find the exits. At the same time as counting the rows, you should probably try to assess which of the other passengers you should go around and which you will be able to elbow out of the way. Although the chances of needing to use this information in anger (more likely panic) are small, imagining the harm you can do to your fellow passengers may help you while away the time whilst you wait for the aeroplane to take off.

So, anyway, eventually the pilot finds the runway, you accelerate and you take off. Ooh, feel the power! Right, that's the fun bit over.

Now you are subjected to the twin horrors of airline food and `in-flight entertainment'. The food is rarely very exciting and not very edible. And then we have the ever helpful air stewards and hostesses. I dont think they really care about us. The airlines train them to think they are working at an expensive hotel, but they are basically behind the counter at McDonalds serving the ungrateful masses. Not even the alcohol can take the edge off.
(Oh, and a free tip to hijackers-- don't bother with the plastic cutlery. The sharpest things on the aeroplane are probably the edges of those nasty foil containers they put the food in.)

And then we come to `in-flight entertainment'. Or, rather, we don't. The last thing I want to do on a flight is to watch old episodes of Friends or -- for national airlines -- programming about how great their country of origin is. Alternatively they might show you a moving map display of where the aeroplane is, which is depressing to watch. It's sad that 800km/h seems so slow. Alternatively, you can just listen to piped music on the headphones provided (which typically use some completely random connector in an effort to stop you from using a pair of headphones which is actually any good).

Airplane seats are not suitable for tall or overweight people. I suppose if I was smaller and if my legs were a little shorter, I could just curl up in a ball and wait for it all to stop. Perhaps the pilots get a better deal. Well, they get a room to themselves, at least. I do wish I could fall asleep on planes. I envy the people that pass out right away and wake up at their destination.

Goodbye nice comfortable truck and hello airplane.
Brazil........Here I come !

Gomme di merda !!

My apologies for the title of this post(google translate it). But I am only quoting the Italian truckie who was unfortunate enough to have this happen to him.

Damage to the trailer after tyre was replaced

Overall, this year, we have all been pretty lucky with truck breakdowns. Previous years have been worse. But punctures are unavoidable and when it happens, we all hope that we can stop the truck as soon as possible. Having 50 kilograms of rubber and wire, flailing around at 90KMH, causes serious damage. The pressure inside a trailer tyre can exert a force of over 10 tonnes when it explodes. Because the bodywork of the trailers either wraps around the tyre or totally encloses it, when a puncture happens, IT,S GOING TO BE EXPENSIVE !!!!

Damaged suspension air bag

After leaving Portimao. Portugal and driving up through Spain, my unlucky Italian friend had this happen to one of his trailer wheels. The bodywork of the trailer, the wheel rim and the suspension air bag were all severely damaged or broken as you can see in the pictures. One of Barcelona,s finest truck workshops was called and repairs were made before he could continue back to Italy. It is not just the driver who is delayed when this happens. With the car and equipment due to be sent to Antwerp for container shipping, this puts extra work on all of the team due to the delay in returning back to their factory.

The aftermath of the tyre failure

As we are no longer racing in Europe, the truckies work will now revolve around the many containers that are on their way across the Atlantic ocean. Next stop for us will be Brazil.
I will try to keep you updated with any testing that teams will be doing in Europe and hopefully not have to post any more pictures of damaged trucks and trailers.

A video of some of the Truckies

I have spent a long time messing around with pictures, etc to bring you all this video.
My blog is a homage to all of them and many other unknown truckies who have helped all of the teams.
As we are no longer racing in Europe, you will not have much chance to see these handsome fellows driving around but here they are in glorious technicolor.

                   Sit back,watch and enjoy..........................I expect this video to go VIRAL !!!!!!!!!

WTCC container loading

A sunny morning in Antwerp and trucks of all different types have arrived at the massive building that will be the starting point for the loading of the containers, ready for the next five, overseas races. Race trucks, general haulage trucks and a car transporter are here to bring the tonnes of equipment which are essential for the WTCC races.
We meet Ralf  from WEITRACON and Holger from DHL in the hotel the night before. Our start time of 0800 hours is confirmed for the next morning. Ralf has been involved with all freight business for the WTCC, for many, years and coupled with Holger and DHL,s global coverage, we are in very capable hands. They have been in contact with the teams for a long time before the events in Antwerp and are familiar faces in the paddock. All of this, just to ensure that the container loading happens efficiently and quickly and that all carnets and associated paperwork are in order for the countries that we are due to race in.

Nail gun and container seals

The containers are monitored on their journey around the world by an electronic box in each container, monitoring GPS location, any shock or unnecessary vibration of the container, temperature, humidity and even G-forces. When the containers are stacked on the deck of a ship, very high in the air, they can be subjected to G-forces caused by Parametric Rolling. This is thought to occur during specific wave height and cycles that can generate extreme roll periods and place unexpectedly high loads on the containers and the goods inside them. DHL can check in real time what is happening to the precious cars and equipment. Hopefully, our containers will not be on a ship like the one in this picture...........

Monitor box for the containers

  
Ratchet straps, a nail gun for securing the wooden chocks around the tyres of the cars, container seals for security of the containers after they are loaded, are all essential items. As are the very helpful warehouse staff who are keen to help us with fork lift driving and general lifting duties.
Some trucks are loaded inside the building and some outside in the yard. Ralf and Holger have their hands busy, monitoring the loading and answering any last minute questions that we may have. The Auto GP series will be at a few of the overseas races and they have completed their container loading, earlier in the week.

Auto GP car in a container

Sunred SEAT cars

Proteam truck drives into the building

And starts unloading.........

Ford team in the yard

Our time in Antwerp is coming to an end, four hours later and we are ready to leave. The other teams are working hard to finish and over the next 24 hours, every one of the WTCC teams will have done the same as us.

What do the teams do when we are waiting for the next race in just over one months time???????????

Well, testing of the cars is an ongoing process throughout the year for those teams who are lucky enough have the money to own a test car. Two teams are in the process of building a test car for this year and another team is building an extra car to use in one of the overseas races. This will have to be taken by air plane, by DHL, at a later date.

Tyre trolley and packhorse boxes ready to go into containers

We now have to drive back to Calais,France and return to the UK. But when we arrive at the port, we are greeted by the sight of one of the ferry boats moored up and going nowhere.
Yes, even the boats breakdown!!
Normally, there are four boats an hour, travelling between France and the UK. Now there are only three and all of the vehicles are having to wait even longer to cross the water. We have to wait over 2.5 hours and this means that when we arrive in the UK, we will hit all of the evening rush hour traffic and any chances of getting home quickly are gone.

One of the teams had a tyre puncture after leaving the race in Portugal and had some catastrophic damage. I hope to bring you some more details as soon as I can.

Travelling home

Garage door with decal graphics, Portimao circuit.

The European rounds of the WTCC are now over. We close down the door of our garage as the evening sunshine in Portugal starts to fade and head back to the hotel. Tomorrow will be the last long journey that the teams will undertake before we have to fly to all the races.
My decision to start this blog could not have been more badly timed. We are not going to be doing so much driving. Unlike previous years when we started the season with fly away events, then came to Europe and then finished off the season overseas again, this season is totally different. I will try to keep my blog as interesting as possible for the remainder of the races but I refuse to rename my blog, RACE TRUCKIES, WITH NO TRUCKS, ONLY CONTAINERS.......

We now have to drive to Spain to catch the ferry back home and a 0600 hours start is needed. This will give us plenty of driving time. As Portugal is in a different time zone from Spain, we will automatically gain one hour as soon as we go across the border. Driving along the coast road to Seville, we then head north towards Salamanca and then north east towards Bilbao. I have made a reservation to stay overnight, at a large motorway service area, approximately 80 kilometres from the ferry port. To get there, we actually have to drive past the motorway junction to Bilbao but it only takes us 15 kilometres out of our way and we know that there is plenty of space to park the truck and it is in a good secure parking area with CCTV. We have met another one of the trucks on the last part of today's journey and he decides to follow us and stay at the same place. We are so conditioned to following the shortest, most direct route when we drive anywhere that it always feels strange when we deviate from this. But as I have mentioned before, we are in a 16.5 metre long race truck and you just don,t park these anywhere! We have enough driving time, to get to Bilbao, as we have two drivers but the other truck has only one. There are some places a little bit closer to the docks but the problem is where do we park safely? I am sure we have chosen to stop in the right place!
The ferry is due to leave at 1000 hours the next morning. We leave the service area, take a detour towards the mountains and rejoin the motorway to Bilbao. Just over an hour later, we are waiting at the docks.

Trucks in Bilbao docks

It doesn,t seem like there are too many cars and trucks waiting to go on the ferry but we have a long wait and are some of the last vehicles to be loaded on the boat. This will help when we arrive at our destination. The way that the boat is loaded means that last on, first off.
HAPPY DAYS!!!!

I have had more chance to speak to the truckies and find out some more information regarding problems that everyone has encountered whilst driving this year. We have had punctures, suspension failures, brake and clutch failures, trucks damaged when tyres have exploded. An air compressor broke on one truck. A broken windscreen and lights. We have had stowaways in Morocco. Multiple encounters with police forces in many countries. Problems at customs borders. Damaged trucks whilst going on and off ferry boats.

BUT NOBODY HAS HAD AN ACCIDENT.

I think that this is a testament to the good skills of all the truckies.
Countless thousands of litres of diesel have been consumed by these trucks, the engines have used many litres of engine oil and a considerable amount of tyre rubber has been deposited on the many thousands of kilometres of European roads that we have all driven. On top of this, we have collectively paid, several thousand Euros in road toll charges. And all of this, just for the WTCC.
The ferry leaves Bilbao docks and heads out to sea. The truckies now have to get back to their teams factories and start preparing tons of equipment, ready for the container loading, in Antwerp, next week.

The ferry back home.

 

The Russians are coming !

This is the story of one teams journey to race their car in WTCC in Portugal.
It starts with the race truck leaving Moscow, via Minsk and on towards the Latvian border. Not only are the team developing a car suitable for WTCC but they have to get it to the race track. Bring on the race truckies!!!

Holes in Russian roads

Not even a road !!!

When they arrived at the Latvian border, there was a 6km queue of trucks in front of them, all waiting their turn to complete the customs and passport control. Now these guys have got to get to the front of the queue somehow. They decide to open up the race truck and take out a small road car which they use for personal transport. They then drive to the checkpoint at the border and explain to the police that they must pass through as quick as possible. The police agree to let them come to the front of the line of trucks, as long as the other truck drivers allow them to do so. I don,t know if Russian truck drivers carry guns in their cabs but I do know that they are some very big guys in Russia and I would not like to start a fight with them.
With the police offering to help them quickly on their way, the truckies now have to negotiate with the other truck drivers to let them pass. They explain their situation, to the driver of the truck in front of them. He agrees that they can go past him. This helpful truck driver then talks on his CB radio and the message gets transmitted, up the 6km line of trucks, and everyone is happy to let the Lada team go to the front of the queue. The police complete their passport checks and they are free to drive into Latvia.

ALL OF THIS, JUST TO GET OUT OF THEIR OWN COUNTRY!!!!

It has taken them 1 day to leave Russia and now they have to drive through Latvia, into Lithuania. This part of the journey takes another day. They can then catch the ferry to Germany. Each time they cross into another country, the passports must be stamped, visas checked and the shipping carnet will be looked at by the customs officials. The ferry to Germany takes another day to complete its journey overseas.
Once they arrived in Germany, they are subjected to yet more customs interrogation before they can continue through Holland, Belgium and on to Magny Coeurs, France for some last minute testing of the car.
This has taken them 1.5 days to complete since getting off the boat.

Testing of the car was completed. Everything packed back up in to the truck and the last part of this huge road trip finally leads them to Portugal. And I am sure that I do not have to tell you that the two,WTCC races are approximately 20 minutes each.
I think that a journey,over 5000km, just to race a car should applauded by anyone who loves motorsport.
Well done Denis, Max and the other unknown driver. 
Now that really is From Russia with Love.

I hate flies and bugs.

Late evening in Portsmouth

The ferry leaves England at 2200 hours and we now have to amuse ourselves for the next 32 hours. Read a book, watch a DVD on the laptop or anything else to pass away the time. Our destination is Bilbao, Spain. Unfortunately, this boat has to change its French crew and at 0800 hours the next day, the boat stops in Brittany, France. It is the reason that the journey takes so long. Normally, it can be done in 24 hours.
But the view from the deck of the boat is quite pleasant as we watch trawlers unloading their previous nights catch of fish. A very small boat, with one man aboard, is pulling up his crab pots from the water and seeing what he has caught. I see him take 7 large crab from one pot and he shouts his good fortune to the departing crew members. I have given up eating crab, fish and other seafood after some very severe food poisoning. And still I had to do the car testing with the team that I worked for. Being sick in the world of motor sport is not really an option. We all rely on each other, so much, and when a team member cannot work, it just makes more work for everyone else. You have to start losing an arm or a leg before you have a good excuse not to work.

Roscoff in Brittany,France

The weather at sea is nice and the water is quite calm so that will make the journey a bit more comfortable until we reach Spain at 0630 hours on Tuesday. The boat was full with camper vans, and caravans but not too many trucks. Luckily we were at the front of the boat and we drive up onto the ramp and straight to the passport control without having to queue for a long time. Once again, great care is taken as we drive up the ramp onto the dock. These race trailers are so easy to damage as I mentioned in an earlier post on this blog. The port of Bilbao has been made much bigger, in the last few years, and it is now much easier to come out of the port and go straight on to the Spanish motorway system. The 480 horsepower truck, pulls us easily up the steep hills and we head towards Burgos. From there, it is a very straight forward journey towards Portugal. We pass through Valladolid, Salamanca and finally reach Merida which is where we decide to stop for the night. Several other teams were on the same boat as us and everyone has a different plan of how and when they need to be in Portugal.

A comic book character from the 1950,s is making his comeback appearance at the WTCC race of Portugal. One of the Chevrolet drivers is going to play the part in real life. The car, the race truck and the pit garage will be be painted and and covered with sticker graphics to help recreate this comic book hero, Michel Vaillant. The race truck was in Spain when we spotted it.

Comic book hero race truck in Spain

The following day and we are up very early so that we can get to get through Spain and reach our final destination, Autodromo do Algarve, Portimao, Portugal. We are not looking forward to washing the truck when we arrive. The amount of dead flies and bugs, covering the front of the truck, will mean that we have to get the pressure washer and the chemical cleaner to remove all traces of them. And to make matters worse, the temperature is 29 Celsius. I hate washing trucks when it is so hot. It is so difficult to remove all traces of the water and you end up with a clean truck which is covered in water marks and smears. This just means that we will have to polish the truck by hand to make it look good.

Turn off at junction 3 to get to the circuit

The circuit is a few kilometres from the motorway and as we arrive, we are greeted by Claudio from the organisers of WTCC, and we follow him through the tunnel and up the steep ramp into the paddock. Only a few teams have got there before us and we locate our garage and park up the truck and start getting the wash equipment out.
Several hours later and we know have a clean truck, BUT IT LOOKS TERRIBLE. Now where did we put the polish???????

The view as you arrive at the circuit

The ramp up to the paddock

The question of road tolls has reared its ugly head again and confusion has taken over. Trucks, cars and even motorcycles, now have to pay to use the roads. Portugal is struggling with its economy and have decided that to raise money, to pay for the maintenance of the roads, they have introduced a toll charge for all vehicles. But they have rushed it into operation, very quickly, and caused a right mess. Locals are refusing to pay. The purchase of a vignette or automatic toll box for trucks and cars is very difficult as not many petrol stations have the necessary equipment installed. The Portuguese website which explains the system, is written in Portuguese and if you do not understand Portuguese, how are foreign drivers expected to understand it?
And the European Union government have said that Portugal cannot charge a toll on sections of motorway that were built using money from the European Union fund. Therefore, it is illegal to make people pay tolls. This is all being sorted out in the law courts now and will probably continue for months and months.

As the world becomes more accessible by plane or car, the cost to travel and move goods seems to be higher and higher. If your truck or car is old and is not very Eco friendly, it will cost you more than a newer vehicle. If the goods that you want to import or export are not Eco friendly, it will cost you more. All of the governments in different countries just seem to want to make money out of everything. Where will it all end???????????

Camera gantries in Portugal. MONEY, MONEY, MONEY

Turning a used WTCC tyre on the rim.

This is sometimes done to utilise and prolong the tyre life for free practice sessions.

I have been taking some more behind the scenes videos and hope to include them in my blog at a later date.