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.