The Road To Spain....and beyond.

The road to Zaragosa

The English sun might be shining, but it is still very cold as we drive towards Portsmouth. The 30 hour ferry crossing to Spain gives me chance to read a book, drink very poor coffee, and as luck would have it, even see a few dolphins as the ferry gets close to Santander. Our destination is Valencia, via an overnight stop in Zaragosa. Every time that we travel along this road, there is either a new bit of motorway that has been built or new petrol stations and service areas have appeared. We invested in a new sat nav(GPS) for the truck, but we are forced to look at a map as the sat nav just does not know where we are !!!!   SO MUCH FOR TECHNOLOGY.


As much as I like Spain, I feel that after the WTCC has raced at Valencia for 7 years,, we need to visit another circuit. It is not a very good circuit for overtaking and I am bored of the hotels and facilities that the teams use, year after year.
Maybe this is just my point of view???


The trucks are washed, parked up, and the paddock gets ready for the weekends entertainment.

         Early morning in Valencia                                       Picture courtesy of PHOTO 4

In my previous Blog post, I mentioned Morocco. And once again, the talk around the paddock is all about how the trip across there will turn out.
I get sent some SMS from an English television company who have just been covering a golf tournament in Morocco. Despite the new Tangier Med port and the extra security around it, it seems that the government officials are still up to their old tricks. They were stuck at the port, waiting to return to Spain for 3 days and it was only after intervention by the staff of the King of Morocco that they were finally allowed to get on a ferry and return to Spain.

This year, the truckies of the WTCC, are combining forces with WEITRACON GmbH & Co. KG.
With Wietracon,s expertise, we hope to beat the system and WIN !!!!!!!!!!

Damage to a trailer

One major issue for most of the truckies will be how to drive the trucks on to the ferry at Algeciras and take them off in Tangier. If a high or low tide coincides with the loading times of the ferries, the ramps leading on to the boats can be at quite a steep angle. Due to the shape and dimensions of the race trucks, we do not have alot of ground clearance at  the back of the trailer. Whether we drive up or down a ramp onto the ferry, the back end of the trailer can touch the ground.

SOMETIMES WITH SOME VERY EXPENSIVE DAMAGE.

Ground clearance is minimal

To stop this, we can raise or lower the air suspension on the trailer and the tractor unit. It helps if we have someone to watch us as we make the slow and cautious journey onto or off the ferry.

A little bit better !

As you can see in the photographs, the back of the trailers are very close to the ground. We can change the height of he trailer by turning a valve, left or right to raise or lower the suspension.

Air suspension control for the tractor unit

We can also do the same with the rear set of wheels on the tractor unit by using the controls situated inside the cab. Using a combination of the 2, we should be able to ensure that the back end of the trailer doesn,t hit the ground. Or prevent the front part of the trailer from contacting the back of the tractor unit when we negotiate the ramp.

Tractor wheels, suspension UP

Tractor wheels, suspension LOWERED

Trailer wheels, suspension UP

Trailer wheels,suspension LOWERED

Ferry wheels

We are lucky as we have another aid to ensure that we do not scrape the underside of the trailer. Our trailer is fitted with a set of "ferry wheels" which will touch the ground before the trailer does.  no other team has these. Hopefully, we will all make it to Morocco without any trailer damage.

Concerning the Eco friendliness of all these vehicles, approximately 31500 kilometres has been travelled by all of the race trucks to get to Valencia. With trucks averaging 3km per litre of diesel, I will let you do the mathematics !!!
The trip has proven relatively trouble free, with only one truck suffering gear selection problems on the way here. This truck will be taken to a local service centre, in the next few days, to be fixed.

Some teams are staying on in Valencia to re-prep the cars before heading to the next race. This is to try to save the cost of returning back to their bases and then driving back down to Algeciras. Other teams will leave their trucks at the circuit and collect them in 7 days time, ready for Morocco.