No Lights on my Trailer.

First to leave the track on Sunday evening was the All Inkl team as they set off to drive to the Lausitzring for some testing.
With all of the troubles of qualifying,which happened at the WTCC race at Salzburg, it was nice to get in the truck on the Monday morning and start driving home. But Monday is a holiday in Germany and trucks are not meant to be on the road. Some trucks ARE allowed but these are normally carrying food for the supermarkets. However, our trucks are classed as being used for entertainment so we can normally drive when other trucks cannot. But it is still possible to be stopped by the police and ultimately, they can make us wait until the truck ban is finished.
We are heading for Reims, France and with over 850km to drive, myself and my co-driver have a long day ahead of us .Once we are back at the factory, we have to unload the truck and transfer everything into our other truck before we start driving towards Russia next week. The decision to take a different trailer has been made as we have 2 axles on our race trailer and we feel that the 3 axles, on the other trailer, will allow us to cope with the poor road surfaces which we are going to encounter. Also, if we have any tyre punctures, the older trailer does not have the expensive bodywork, covering the wheels, so it will be cheaper to repair than our very nice race trailer.
The day after I arrive back home, I have to go to the Russian Embassy and apply for my visa. After waiting for an hour, my application is accepted and they tell me that my passport will be posted back to me in 2 days with a visa stamp in it.
Something happened in Salzburg which myself and my team could not believe. When we arrived at the circuit, to begin our drive home, we realised that some thief had stolen our electrical cable which connects the truck to the trailer. Because of this, we had no lights, no brake lights and no indicator lights on our trailer. Due to it being a holiday, the truck businesses were closed in all the countries that we drove through, and we were unable to buy a new one.
Was it one of the WTCC Truckies who stole it, or one of the Truckies from the support races? Unfortunately, it will be impossible to find out. We took a dangerous risk with the other road users and we could have been in trouble with the police for having no lights. We had to take extra care when we driving and thankfully we avoided this.
We decided last week to use the ferry boat  from Germany to Latvia and then drive to Russia. We will arrive in Ventspils, Latvia and then we can drive the 450km to the border. I think this is a better option than driving through Poland, Lithuania. The Lada Lukoil team are driving to Russia now and decided to use the boat as well. I have just received some pictures so you can see what the rest of the teams will have to contend with when we leave next week. Thanks for the pictures Max.

Night time driving means extra care must be taken.

The poor state of the roads.

Accidents DO happen

Arrival at the Latvian/Russian border.