RACE TRUCKIE: WTCC Moscow Part 4. Conclusion and photo special.

M20 Road near Ostrov

13th June, 0730 hours, Travemunde, Germany. Our ferry boat has arrived from Latvia and we can be happy that our long journey to Moscow and back again is nearly over. We have a 20 hour drive before we can finally get home. But at least we know that we will have nice roads to drive on, not like the roads in Russia. The severe climate of Russia makes road conditions extremely hazardous. Everything depends on the time of the year. In autumn and winter the roads are severely damaged by rains, snow and frost. In spring they are being repaired. And summer is the only time of the year when their quality improves to some extent. However, roads create a constant problem in Russia and make driving a truck basically a stressful experience. Financing of Russian roads is pretty poor too and the Russians that I spoke to told me about the widespread corruption amongst the road construction companies.

The Sunday evening, after the race, and we are amongst the first group of trucks to leave Moscow Raceway. This race track has very good facilities and it is like an oasis amongst the countryside around it. There are no hotels close to the racetrack and some teams have had to travel 100km, every day, to come to work. The security to get into the track is a little daunting for us Westerners. Metal detectors, security and police personnel and bag searches. But we are leaving all of this behind as we drive away into the evening sunshine. We drive for 4 hours and when darkness descends, it is time to stop as we can no longer drive see the holes in the roads. It would be nice to get out of the trucks and have a chat with the other Truckies but the mosquitoes are relentless and there are lots of them. Despite using mosquito repellent, they still want to eat us. I have never encountered so many mosquitoes and I have travelled to alot of different countries. The next morning, we drive again and arrive at the Russian border at 1300 hours. Our agent is waiting for us. I ask for some identification as I do not know who he is. He was meant to help us when we arrived in Russia but he seems to have upset the Russian customs officers and they wold not allow him in. Fortunately he is here today. I was expecting a queue of trucks at the border and the agent was going to help us to the front of the queue. There was not another truck in sight so we could proceed into the customs area. We are issued with a piece of paper and this is given a signature and a rubber stamp as we complete each section of the customs process. When we finally leave Russia, this piece of paper has 9 different signatures and stamps on it. CRAZY.
After waiting for 2 hours, it is time to go to the x-ray scanner with the truck. I am first in but then when they look for my paperwork, they seem to have lost it. I wait 30 minutes before it is found and then I can go back to the parking area and more waiting. The mosquitoes are everywhere but when the rain starts to fall, we can get wet but avoid being bitten. More waiting and after 11 hours, we can finally leave Russia and enter the Latvian customs. It has taken us longer to complete the customs process with our agent than when we had to do everything ourselves when we came into Russia.
Once again, CRAZY.
On the Latvia side, we experienced no delays and we are all done in less than an hour. As all the teams are European(except Lada), and Latvia is an EU country, the paperwork takes only a fraction of the time. A few of us did meet a Latvian customs official who was trying to make us pay "black" money for some really stupid rules that he seemed to suggest that we had broken. But we refused to pay and none of the other Latvian customs officers wanted to help him in this corrupt process.
I still cannot understand why we the race organisers cannot help us more with these customs processes. Morocco and Russia invite the teams to come and race and entertain their people. Money is made and this helps their economies. Maybe WTCC is not as important as Formula 1 or the Olympic games which will be held at Sochi in 2014, but we all help the Russian economy and because of that, we deserve to be treated a little better and given an easier time when we enter the country.

It has cost many thousands of Euros to travel to this event but I know that next year, we will do some things differently to ensure a smoother passage through customs and try to avoid the bad roads. As I write this, there are still some teams who chose to drive back through Lithuania, Poland and then to their factories in Spain and Italy. I have received no emails regarding any problems that they may have encountered on their homeward journey so I hope that "no news is good news". I think that this trip has proven the Truckies abilities and skills to drive the trucks safely. The fact that we did not have any damage to the cars or equipment in the trucks proves that we can secure the loads that we carry. And the fact that we only had a few punctures, despite the terrible road conditions, proves our driving skills.
I will leave you with some pictures of our travels.