Just another journey.

Washing trucks at the Salzburgring

 The Salzburg weather has given us everything from snow, hail, rain and then continued into glorious sunshine. But as we arrive on the Monday morning, at 0530 hours to collect the truck, the skies above the mountains are very grey.

 We need to get as far as we can today and the autobahn in Germany has roadworks everywhere. That is why we are at the Salzburgring so early. It is 35 kilometres to the Austrian/German border and there is very little traffic. We have to buy German road tax for the truck and the first chance to do that is at the Autobahn services, at the border.

Still some snow on the Austrian mountains

 As we come around the corner and up the hill, we can see that the services is absolutely full of trucks. I make a quick decision and decide to stay on the Autobahn, even though trucks should not take this route. Normally, all trucks have to go through route the services. This gives the customs and police chance to stop and search any suspicious or dangerous looking vehicles. My decision to stay on the Autobahn looks like it may come to a very quick end. A police car is parked by the side of the road and I can only hope that we do not get stopped. I would just have to plead ignorance and try to talk my way out of any trouble.
Myself and another race truck behind me, slowly drive past the police. I look in my mirrors and I am sure that the police car has turned onto the Autobahn and is now following the truck behind me. We both continue driving, but nothing happens. We do not get stopped and are free to continue on our journey.
IT,S A MIRACLE !!!!!!!!!!

German roadworks

Several trucks are passed on the way and they pass us again when we stop for a quick coffee.The roadworks are never ending through Germany. Kilometre after kilometre. Through the clouds of dust caused by the bulldozers and other earth moving vehicles, and on towards France.



A short detour from the German Autobahn, near Baden Baden, takes us across the River Rhine border crossing, and onto the French Autoroute. The Autoroute system is luxury compared to what we have just driven through and we can enjoy the journey a little bit more.


Our final destination will be England. But this evening, a hotel we know offers us the chance to rest up for the night. Unfortunately, some Bridgestone race trucks had got there before us and had parked in the hotel car park so that they took up 6 parking places with 3 trucks. NOT VERY CONSIDERATE! We spend the night in France and then just a few hours drive the next day, we will reach the port of Calais and cross the English channel, by ferry to the UK.

41 Kilometres of roadworks

One of the teams had arrived at the Salzburgring last week, with some serious damage to one of their trailers. A tyre had exploded and this not only damaged the bodywork and paintwork of the trailer. It had also broken all the electrical system that operates the tail-lift. Before the truck could be unloaded, the electrical system had to be repaired and then the bodywork had to be patched up to make the trailer look nice again. AND THEY DID A VERY GOOD JOB OF IT. The image of the trucks and trailers is as important as the cars and the garages. The spectators who walk around the paddock area take note of all of these things and it reflects on their teams personal image when things do not look 100%. You will see many people having their photograph taken next to some of these them. That,s how good looking the trucks are!!!!!

Exploding tyre damage

Trucks parking up for the night in France

Yokohama meets Bridgestone in France

Chevrolet and Yokohama are friends again after the Austrian race.

A Beginners Guide to WTCC Tyres.

Most of the WTCC truckies are also responsible for tyres. So I have compiled a bit of an insight for those who are interested.

Firstly, we all use a control tyre, supplied by Yokohama. Only 2 types of tyre are available, slicks and wets. No other sizes or makes are allowed. The slicks are 240/610R17 for the ADVAN A005 and the wets are 240/610R17 for the ADVAN A006. Each car can use a maximum of 12 new slicks and can also use 8 of their best carry over tyres from the previous race. Some flexibility is built into the regulations when the season starts and when we go to new tracks or fly away events, but I am not going to list all the permutations available here. IT WILL BORE YOU.

Tyre declaration sheet.

Scrutineers.

Tyre scanners and yellow bar code on the tyre.

Once the tyres are fitted, the bar codes on the tyres are scanned by Yokohama. The teams will then collect their tyres and must write down all the bar code numbers, which are then given to the scrutineers. Later on, the tyre scrutineers will visit each team, scan the tyres again, to ensure that they match the tyres declared by the teams. 
The teams will now go through the arduous task of cleaning and giving each of their race tyres its own number,eg, 1,2,3,4 etc. And possibly marking FL(front left) or RR(rear right). As we have many different nationalities, these markings will differ according to which language they speak.

Cleaning and marking tyres.

Some teams do not bother with any tyre balancing. Others balance the rim before it is fitted with a tyre, and some teams balance the rim after a tyre has been fitted. I went testing with a team sometime ago and we put lots of tyre weights on the rims and monitored whether the driver could detect the vibrations. The results were that a tyre can produce quite bad vibration before the driver becomes very concerned. REMEMBER, these are touring cars. NOT, sensitive, ultra lightweight, single seaters. All teams will constantly check the rims during the race weekends to make sure that they are still round. These cars use alot of kerb in some of the corners, so a few damaged rims are to be expected.

TPMS fitted to a rim

Tyre pressure sensors,(TPMS), can be also fitted. These will monitor the tyre pressure inside the tyre, each lap. It normally takes a tyre several laps to reach its optimum pressure. Data is sent from the TPMS to the enginners laptop via the car. The tyres are normally inflated to a cold pressure.e.g. 1.6 Bar. Then when the tyre has been put into its tyre warmer for approximately 1.5 hours, a tyre pressure reading is taken and then a small amount of air will be taken out.As the tyre temperature rises, so does the tyre pressure. The engineer has to calculate what tyre pressure he wants to achieve for optimum performance.
ALL TEAMS HAVE DIFFERENT WAYS OF DOING THIS PROCEDURE AND ENSURING THAT THE TYRE HAS THE CORRECT AMOUNT OF AIR BEFORE THE CAR GOES ON TRACK.

Tyres in the tyre warmers.

The question of whether to use air or nitrogen to inflate the tyre, is a tricky one. Again, some teams do and other teams do not. Many races are won using normal air. The air may pass through an air dryer before it enters the tyre, to try to take out as much moisture as possible. Air is a mixture of Nitrogen(78%) and oxygen(21%) Oxygen is far more reactive than Nitrogen and at high operating temperatures, the oxygen reacts with the rubber of the tyre, reducing the total pressure inside.Water particles in the air upset the contraction and expansion as a function of temperature which also makes the tyre pressure unpredictable. Nitrogen however, will not absorb any appreciable amount of water, so your tyre temperature should not fluctuate. But if you use Nitrogen, you should first inflate the tyre with Nitrogen, let it all out, then re inflate with Nitrogen before putting in the valve core.
This is called "purging". The extra time and effort to do this is quite considerable for the teams who use this procedure. If you do not purge the tyre first, you will still have a small percentage of air mixed with the Nitrogen.

Tyre warmer control box.

The tyre warmers will sometimes be set to a maximum temperature,e.g. 80 degrees Celsius. Some teams will will turn up the temperature of the tyre warmers for maybe another 15 minutes before the car goes out. Teams will try to put the tyres through a maximum of 3 heat cycles while they are in the tyre warmers. More than this can be detrimental to the tyre. Every team seems to do it differently.
A similar procedure will be used for the wet tyres.

Ready to use a heat gun to scrape the tyre clean.

Another job that is done to the tyres, after they have been used, is tyre scraping.
This gives a team chance to clean up the tyre surface of old rubber that has picked up on the tyre, usually as the car comes into the pits. The race engineers can also inspect the tyre service when it has been cleaned up. This is not always necessary as a track that is clean will not have lots of old rubber laying on the track.

Old rubber which has been cleaned off a tyre.

All of this care and attention to the WTCC tyres will still give the race engineers some surprises. All they can do is try to follow the basic rules and formulaes and then make adjustments on the day of the races.
The optimum tyre pressure for each car is forever changing. Ambient air temperature, track surface temperature, the suspension set up of the car, or hitting the kerbs on the corners very hard. All of these can affect the tyre and its performance. Also, drivers all have different driving styles and like their car to handle in different ways. Do they want a bit more oversteer or understeer in a corner? If you look at the diagram below, you can see how the tyre pressure can affect the handling of the car.

Adjustments	Decrease Understeer	Decrease Oversteer
Front Tyre Pressure	Higher	Lower
Rear  Tyre Pressure	Lower	Higher

This piece you are reading is really only an overview of what happens to a WTCC tyre. Without trying to confuse you with too much technical stuff.
Tyres may be little, round, black pieces of rubber but they demand and require a lot of care, love and attention. Race engineers can put big demands on the truckie in charge of the tyres. It is a very underrated aspect to keeping the car on the track. A good tyre man is as essential as all of the other team members.

Ring,Ring,Ring.

 My own personal view on the Hungarian WTCC was that it was superb. Good crowds, good weather, good racing and good to see the Lada boys back in action. I remember when Lada turned up at their first WTCC race. They have evolved in their skills and appearance and it only helps strengthen the importance of this championship.

Accident damaged wheel and tyre

Packing up on Sunday.

With the sound of the crowd still making our ears "ring", we load up the truck. We decide to move it away from the main paddock area to somewhere a little quieter. We want to leave early on Monday morning and do not want to find the truck has been blocked in causing us an unnecessary delay.

Next stop for us will be the Salzburgring, Austria. When we arrive at the circuit, 3 security men are waiting by the circuit entrance, they confirm who we are and we drive up to where we left the truck. Some poor guy has been on security duty all night and is sat on a plastic chair, right by our trucks. He is awake but is looking a bit cold and definitely tired. If the circuit security told him to stay by the trucks all night, I would like to say thank you for their vigilance. Two trucks set off at 0600 hours and we try to get back around the Budapest motorway system before too much traffic appears. Spots of rain start to appear on the windscreen and the sky is very grey. Such a contrast to the 2 weeks of brilliant sunshine that we have had.

Packing up at the front of the garages

Climbing up the hill and through the roadworks, we leave Budapest behind and set off for the border of Austria and Hungary. As we get close, we can just make out, in the distance, the hills that surround Bratislava, Slovakia. We have travelled a full circle through these countries but before we can leave Hungary, we are stopped at the border and have to keep the border guards happy by giving them a team cap each.
"Koszonom" they shout as we are set free to cross into Austria. The drive through Austria, towards Salzburg, is trouble free, apart from a 12km section of roadworks. The mountain tops are still snow covered but not as much as when we drove past on the way to Slovakia. SUMMER IS COMING !

LET ME IN........please.

Find junction 274 on the autobahn and follow the signs for "Salzburgring". Head on up to the first roundabout, turn right and we drive slowly through Gitzen. The road starts leading towards the forests and if you have never been here before, it looks like you could be heading into dangerous territory, whilst driving a 16 metre long truck. Down the hill and out of the village, we cross a small bridge and a sign says turn left for LKW Salburgring traffic. The road gets very narrow here and after 1 km, we have to turn left again. This left turn is almost 180 degrees and takes some caution to get around it. Now you really do look like you are going for a drive through the forest !!!!

Meandering our way along this very small road, we are careful not to catch the overhanging tree branches against the side of the truck.  Some time ago, they actually moved a whole house, several metres to one side, because it was so close to this road. As race trucks got bigger, it became ever more dangerous to squeeze past. They couldn't move the road, so the house was the easy option!

Public track day at the "Ring"

The race track was first opened in 1968. It was built in a narrow, alpine valley, and has a rather simple layout, with two long straights plus the sweeping and fast "Fahrerlagerkurve" ("paddock turn") at the bottom, and the narrow "Nockstein-Kehre" on the top. In spite of its simple layout, it garnered a fearsome reputation for the high speeds reached on the straights and the "Fahrerlagerkurve".
But they didn,t have huge great trucks in 1968 and the access tunnel is not tall enough for us to use. So, we are forced to wait, while a track day is in progress. Once the cars have stopped and before the next session starts, Gate number 2 is opened for us, and we have to drive down and across the actual race track, before parking in the paddock. Whilst waiting at the gate, I had chance to have a close look at a small hydroplane speed boat. The owner was obviously using the parking facilities before possibly racing at the nearby Wolfgangsee lake.

I would love to have a go in one of these....

The truck will now stay here until it is needed in 2 weeks time. It saves  us money by not driving back to our base and the positioning of the last few races has meant that we have not had to spend so much on diesel and manpower in the current economic climate.

I am hoping that the crowds will appear again at the Salzburgring. But the local population do alot of shooting in the forests here. So if the squirrels rabbits ,birds, deer and wild boar are due a weekend away from the guns, maybe the WTCC race could be the solution.

30 degree heat

Saturday night in Slovakia paddock

The amazing weather has continued and it is 1000 hours, on Monday, when we get to the circuit to collect the truck and drive to the Hungaroring, in Hungary. One truck has had problems with the clutch. Before he can move, he has to bleed the air which is accumulating in the system. A major irritation and no clear evidence of what is causing it.
A big problem happened for us the night before. When we had just arrived at the hotel, we got a phone call, asking us to move the truck from the back of the garage. There was a motorcycle track day scheduled for the Monday morning and they needed the space in the paddock. This meant driving 45km to the circuit to move the truck and then drive 45km back. All of this at 2100 hours. NOT GOOD.
The paddock is mayhem when we arrive and we have to ask people to move vehicles out of the way before we can leave.

I take the decision to try to take a shorter route into Hungary, rather than going back to Bratislava and then joining the motorway. On the way, we have to stop at a service station near Medvedov to get our money back from the Slovakian  toll box. This takes us 45 minutes. This toll system is new for the Slovakians and it is in need of some severe changes. It is crazy to have to wait so long and if you have other people, doing the same in front of you, this time will only increase. We think that it may be helpful if we keep them for a possible return trip next year. But after talking to a German driver, we find out that if the box is inactive for 6 months, you have to rent a new one for another 50 euros.

IT,S JUST ANOTHER WAY FOR GOVERNMENTS TO GET MORE MONEY FROM YOU.

We start driving again and cross a very narrow bridge over the River Danube, and into Hungary. And guess what..............???????  Yes, we have to buy more tax for the truck. The powers that be dictate that we can buy tax for 1 day, 10 days or 1 month. Absolutely nothing in between. The "Matrica Vignette" office is very small, made of wood and has a service entrance about 1 metre from the floor. I have to bend down to talk to her. She doesn,t speak good English and my Hungarian is non existent. We write vehicle registration numbers on pieces of paper. Tell her that we need 10 days vignette and 71 euros later, we are totally legal and can continue our journey to the Hungaroring. Slovakia could learn a lesson from this method of payment. No silly, electronic box. Just a piece of paper. Once our vehicle registration number is entered in the system, we are good to go. The cameras that are situated on the roads can detect who we are. SIMPLES !!!!!!!!!

I hear that some trucks have been stopped by the Slovakian and Hungarian police but after some time, everyone is free to continue their journey. Why do police officers stop vehicles, from other countries. Especially when they can see your vehicle registration but they do not speak your language. It just seems so futile and pointless. They can,t talk to you and vice versa. VERY BIZARRE.

We head into Gyor, take a short turn to the left and head towards the M19 and the M1 towards Budapest. Chance to fill up with some diesel, get a coffee and get moving again.

212311 florints = lots of euros

Just as we are about to leave the services, several race trucks thunder past and give their truck horns a good blast. The motorway section around Budapest has been under construction for several years. It still resembles a very big building site and we saw not a single construction worker. Is this due to a lack of money or because of the May Day holiday? The circuit is very badly signposted. You only see a sign when you are 200 metres from the exit from the motorway. BLINK... and you will miss it.

The only sign for the Hungaroring

 We were expecting to just park the trucks, away from the garages. But obviously there is little or no testing at the circuit this week so it doesn,t matter if we park in the paddock.

Trucks arriving in Hungary

Do I know you?

We park up, get in a car to the hotel and we treat ourselves to a beer on a scorching hot, Budapest day.
Job done.

TAX,TAX,and more TAX

I get bored very easily. When I am not a truckie, time can pass very ,very slowly. But after yet another Morocco experience, my free time was absolute bliss. I have been in contact with almost everybody and I have heard so many things concerning the last race. Suffice to say, we are all glad that is over.

So now we have to head towards a relatively new and for us, an unvisited circuit. Slovakia Ring is in the middle of nowhere. Or so it seems. As you drive across an almost flat area of countryside, 40km east of Bratislava. The large, open spaces, show all the signs of the old Communist collective farm methods. Vast areas of very fertile land with only a few hedges and trees separating them. The odd village appears but the old Tannoy systems still hang from village street lights. These were used to broadcast the Communist propaganda to the Party faithful and the downtrodden citizens. The roads are not very smooth and you get the impression that a covering of winter snow would make the drive a little less bumpy. Modern styles mix with the drab, grey buildings of times gone by. Slowly but surely, democracy and "westernization" have taken over.
 

Dutch wind power

Pride of Rotterdam ferry

An overnight ferry crossing to Holland is the start of a journey that will bring motor sport to the masses, and money to the governments.  We leave the ferry and after 5km, we have to stop to buy our Benelux truck tax. It costs 8 Euros for the day. On into Germany and yet more road tax must be purchased. A slightly more complicated system now takes over. You are meant to specify which road number you come into the country on. As we are also due an overnight stop in Germany, we also have to specify which motorway junction we exit from when we stop. Likewise, when we depart the next morning, we have to specify where we join the motorway and which road we finally leave the country before entering Austria. Now we are subject to using the Austrian Go-Box. This is an electronic device which we bought a few years ago, and we only have to make sure that we have enough pre-paid credit installed,to cover our journey along the Austrian motorways. Finally , we reach Slovakia. And yet more tolls. I had checked on the Internet and I thought that we could just pay a transit toll. We had only a short distance to go on the Slovakian motorways before reaching the circuit. But the Slovakian government wants money!!!! We stop at the border and after an hours wait, we have now had to purchase, yet another, electronic toll device.They stopped selling transit tickets in March 2012. This looks positively archaic, with its cigarette lighter socket power supply. That will be another 100 euros. THANKYOU.

Slovakia box, Austrian box, Benelux ticket, German tickets.

 TAX,TAX,TAX,TAX. MONEY, MONEY, MONEY.

Dutch road work sign

Driving through Austria, we see some amusing signs for the roadworks. It certainly puts a smile on my face. The roadworks do not slow us down for long and the journey across to Slovakia has been very good. We have made very good time and we arrive at the Slovakia Ring at 1900 hours.

You see some strange sights when you drive through all of these different countries including neon signs for gentleman's clubs and a very, very, very big chair.

There is also time to enjoy the beauty of the River Danube. We make the most of it as when we are driving around the Bratislava ring road, the River Danube justs looks brown and dirty compared to when we crossed over it earlier in the day.

Once we had turned off the Bratislava ring road, it is a very slow and quite bumpy road that leads to the Slovakiaring. Situated in the middle of nowhere, a newly built circuit appears as we turn left off the E572.

Problems??????????

Asimple job becomes very difficult

Once we had washed the truck and parked up, I had chance to talk with the other truckies. It appears that 3 trucks sustained damage to to the lack of decent ferry ramp facilities between Morocco and Spain. The team who had tyre troubles that I mentioned, previously, somehow managed to keep going until finally the tyre blew out. Unfortunately, this also damaged the air suspension control. Work was still being done to the truck in Slovakia while the garages were being set up.

Slovakiaring is very new, a nice big paddock area and an excellent cafe/restaurant. But is there any need to write "PIT LANE" and "PIT WALL", every 3 metres. Do they think we are stupid or had somebody bought a stencil set and wanted to get maximum use of it?

Anyway.I think that all of the teams are happy to be here. Hopefully, the crowds will come and add to the glorious weather that we are promised for the race.

Are these real shells inside the tank??

A few people made good photographic use of the army tanks which were being stored behind a building at the circuit. I do not know if we were allowed to go inside one the tanks but we did.

Truckie Treats

TRUCKIE TREATS......This is the name that is given to the supply of food, carried in the race trucks to each circuit we visit.

Walking through the various teams garages today, I was shocked by the many varieties of sweets and crisps and other snack food. One job of the truckies. in a lot of teams, is to go shopping for mechanics and set up crew. So when everyone starts to turn up at the circuit, before any catering facilities are available, or fresh fruit can be purchased, you can at least eat something. Truckies try to cater for the ever changing needs of these younger guys. We are asked to buy this, or buy that but we just never seem to be able to please.

Few things irritate me more than this asinine practice of manufacturing food that’s “fun to eat” and which is designed with the sole intent of helping ineffectual parents coerce their damned offspring into consuming a meal.

In my day we ate because we were hungry – not because our snacks bore a passing resemblance to Scooby Doo or as an excuse to sculpt a cheese string into a mozzarella Rastafarian.
Food wasn’t meant to be some damned form of interactive play – it was meant to provide sustenance and we considered ourselves lucky if a few scraps found their way into our garage.
They turn their nose up at any food that doesn’t have a narrative, a downloadable theme song and come in a minimum of 14 distinctive fun-filled shapes.

Why the hell do we need to bribe damned young people into doing something that keeps them alive? I’m pretty sure that after 72 hours locked in a darkened garage without Haribo and Pringles even the most pugnacious of the little miscreants would see the light and happily chew on my training shoes.

What’s next? Colourising their oxygen as an incentive for them to breathe?

And it’s not just the pandering I object to. I’m no expert but if you ask me, making food “fun” is the primary reason behind so many young mechanics struggle to get under cars and are and causing a "girthquake", everytime they move towards a toolbox. They’ve been raised to believe that eating is part game, part entertainment and all around cure for boredom.

In my view, young mechanics would be wise to put away fizzy cola bottles and chupa cup lollies, get themselves some backbone and adopt the mantra used by my parents:

“You’ll eat what I put in front of you and you’ll damned well like it.”

As a team, we’d be healthier, happier and better off for it.

And the truckies would not be given such a big list of "THINGS THAT WE WILL NOT EAT".

Me entienden......Do you understand me?

I have added Google Translate to my blog. It is a "machine translation". It will not be perfect. But it might help some readers.

Morocco pictures

the road around Rabat

climbing into the port

Despite a very long journey from Spain on a ferry, we have finally got home and I have never been so happy. The weather was terrible and the crossing took much longer than expected because of the rough sea. There was a lot of people being sick on the boat and we also had to have a helicopter come and air lift someone who had broken their leg when the boat was being tossed around. I have had some pictures that I wanted to post and now I have a good internet connection, here they are.

Lukoil truckie in a hurry

Early days before Morocco race

 

Two shipping agents in the parking area, before we go to the scanner

The "officials" decide how you join the queue for the scanner. Would you trust them????????

This is worth more than gold. Proof that you have been through the scanner

Morocco Part 2

secure parking outside the port

My early start is delayed by half an hour due to problems at the hotel when I try to check out. The desk clerk is seriously lacking in common sense and keeps wanting me to sign for drinks that I haven,t had. This is not a good start for what will later become a nightmare.

Once again I am helping two teams by showing the way out of Marrakech and to the port and so I can help with the different languages. The journey starts with the rain in Marrakech, making my nice, clean truck very dirty. But, as the hours pass, the weather gets better. A quick fuel stop and the Hungarian team spot a problem with a trailer tyre. The tyre has caught against a kerb and has started to split. The wire inside has started to come out through the rubber. A replacement in Morocco is out of the question so he has to hope it will stay in one piece until we get to Spain. We make good time to Tangiers port and are surprised to see teams who left much,much earlier than us, waiting in the parking area outside the port.

SECURE PARKING OUTSIDE THE PORT......Our shipping carnets had been collected,the day before, and passed to customs for clearance and we were told to give our arrival time at the port so that we could be processed as we arrived. This now looked like our shipping agent was just being lazy and they waiting for everyone to turn up and process us all together. I was glad that I made the decision not to arrive early or I would be as unhappy as they were. A old man greets us in the parking area and asks who our shipping agent is. He has no I.D. badge and we are reluctant to give out this information. We have paid a lot of money to this shipping company and do not expect them to "contract out" the business to someone else. But, an hour later, we are given a piece of paper by him authorising us to go down to another parking area inside the port. The man then asks for money, team caps or anything else in return for his "services" which we all decline to do.

SECURE PARKING INSIDE THE PORT......Once we have all moved to this parking area, we continue to wait for another 2 hours before our carnets are handed back to us. One teams carnet is missing and we are not given a card which allows us to queue for the truck, x-ray scanner. We can only wait until the missing carnet and the cards appear. Another hour is lost! Despite high fences and some security, we watch as 3 stowaways enter the parking area and try to get under the trailers before being chased off by the different truckies.

Waiting to go through to the scanner

THE X-RAY SCANNER......A 4 lane queue of trucks sits waiting to be called through to the 2 scanners. A system of "totally random selection" now happens. It does not matter who was there first, you can only hope you get called forward by an "official" and his "Moroccan hand wave". You can then join yet another queue before trying to turn the truck to the left and line up in front of the building where the scanners are located. The space is very tight and considering the port is so large, I cannot understand why so little room is allowed to manoeuvre a 16 metre long truck. More waiting just makes us all a little more tired and demoralised. Once through the scanner, you then park up in a very random manner and wait for a ticket that proves you completed this part of the process. Some teams are forced to join the queue again and go back through the scanner. Luckily, I am not one of them.
A search on the Internet and also talking to people has revealed that the EU has imposed this scanner process on the Moroccan authorities, to help with free trade to Spain. Where a race truck comes into this trade agreement, I do not know?
Scanner ticket in hand, we start to move back down in front or the trucks waiting to join the scanner queue. If you can imagine a figure of 8 pattern, this is how the trucks are moved around this very confined space. Everybody just seems to be in everyone else,s way. It is a totally ridiculous system and I think a child could have designed it in a better way. We now move towards some waiting police and customs people who seem to spend more time shouting, hand waving and paying no real attention to the job in hand. We are sat behind a Spanish team who seem to have a problem with some incorrectly written numbers on their scanner ticket. As I am now blocking the queue for the scanner, a policeman waves us around the Spanish and this is also confirmed by our shipping agent who has been shepherding the trucks through. I let out a sigh of relief as I finally leave this mayhem behind and start to drive the 2km to the ship departure lanes.
I TOLD YOU THIS PORT WAS NOT SMALL.

plenty of time for tea and coffee

We pass a final police checkpoint, our scanner ticket has a bar code which is scanned and we are finally free to wait for the next available boat out of this hell hole.








THE DEPARTURE LANES......One race truck after another starts to line up at Quay 6, as we were asked to do. Unfortunately this is wrong, so later, we will all have to move again to Quay 7. Moroccan efficiency!!!!!! We all stand around waiting for the boat. Everyone has a story to tell of how the day has progressed and we are all tired, fed up and desperate to get out of here. When the trucks have to move to Quay 7, I loose my place and end up behind everyone else. This simple factor will signal yet another problem for us.
From out of the darkness, a ship arrives and starts unloading its cargo of trucks, cars and vans onto Moroccan territory. We wait and wait and after 1 hour, the boat finally starts to load up for the journey back to Spain. Some trucks are suffering badly with ground clearance problems and bits of wood and rope are put underneath the trailer wheels to help raise them up. I have not had chance to talk with everyone to ascertain if any trucks were damaged when being loaded. I will update you in my next blog post.
We are the last to go on to the boat. As I move forward, one of the security man with a dog, walks around the truck. The dog starts barking. A stowaway has climbed under my truck and is laying on top of the trailer wheel axles. If he had stayed there,he would have been crushed to death. When the truck is not running, the air suspension would have slowly dropped down as the truck was parked on the boat. I do not know what these people expect to do when they arrive as illegal immigrants in Spain. Do they think that they will get a job, money or anything else? Or is Morocco such a bad place that anything is better than staying there? In previous years of WTCC, some truckies have witnessed these people being beaten and even shot by the police. It is not something that we in the Western world ,can comprehend.
We are finally waved forward and two policemen ask to see our passports. We are then shouted at because we have not had our passports stamped with an exit date.
Remember the policeman and shipping agent who waved us around the Spanish truck? THAT,S WHERE WE SHOULD HAVE GOT OUR PASSPORTS STAMPED. A man from the company who operates the boat, Baleria Lines, offers to drive us quickly to the police to get this stamp in our passports. The police shout at him and walk away. We put our head in our hands and watch the police head towards the comfort of their police hut. Their rudeness is totally unnecessary and makes me hate them and the country they represent.

HOW DIFFICULT CAN IT BE TO LEAVE THIS BLOODY PLACE.

My job helps provide entertainment, employment and brings money to Morocco. I am not a criminal but I am made to feel like one.

THE DEPARTURE LANES, PART 2......We can see other truckies looking down from the back of the boat at us. They do not know why we have been refused but are powerless to help. The doors of the boat close and we stare at each other in total dismay. I leave the truck and talk to the man from Baleria and he says that he will drive us up to the police post. We can get our passports stamped but we will have to wait for the next boat which is at 0500 hours the next day. The man from Baleria explains the situation to the police. Today is 16th  April and because the next boat is due on the 17th  April, he will not stamp the passports! I start to complain but I am ushered away by the Baleria man. He knows how the police work and I am making the situation worse. On the drive back to the truck he explains how difficult it is for the boat companies to operate this service between Spain and Morocco. If the Moroccan authorities delay the passengers, the boats will continue to sail half empty. How can the boat companies make money when conditions like this are forced upon them?
We sit in the truck and try to get some sleep before we can go back the next day and complete the passport process.
0400 hours and we are woken up and told to take a shuttle bus back to the police office. When we get there, the same policeman from earlier that night, takes only seconds to rubber stamp our passports. Another case of Moroccan efficiency! It takes another 30 minutes of waiting on the bus before we drive back to the truck. We are concerned that we will miss this boat. There are only 8 cars and vans to be loaded and our truck. Luckily, the man from Baleria waits for our return. One more check for stowaways and we drive on. We are massively relieved and my hair has gone a little bit more grey. I am now a 3 times veteran of WTCC in Morocco and I have had enough.ALGECIRAS......A perfect sunrise over the Rock of Gibraltar goes unnoticed by both of us. The relief at having finally left Morocco blinds us to the beauty of life. Moving slowly out of the boat and towards the Spanish police, we are greeted with a friendly "Ola", a quick check again for any stowaways and we are FREE. But maybe not......
I try to go through Spanish customs without getting our carnet stamped. In my limited Spanish, I say what a beautiful day it is and where we are going but he knows his job too well and knows that I must wait for customs. I am not trying to break the law by avoiding this process as our carnets are only temporary and we can get them stamped at a later date. I am only trying to bend the rules to make my life a little bit easier. We still have a long journey back through Europe and we are keen to get going. One of the teams has managed to get through customs the night before. He got lost in the port when he came off the boat, but he just got waved through when he arrived at Spanish customs. I call him on his mobile and tell him that he has to turn around and come back because the Spanish customs need to do all the paperwork together. He believes me at first but I can not keep up my joke for long. Finally I tell him not to worry. I am glad he is away from Morocco and heading home.
We find a parking place inside the port and walk across to the Spanish shipping agents who will help us complete the customs process. Soon, some of the other team truckies start to appear and our story of the previous night is told over, and over again. It is 1300 hours before we are all finally clear of customs and we can go our separate ways. Some trucks are on a boat from Tangiers to Genoa, Italy while the rest of us will drive up through Spain. Some teams are keen to get their cars back to the workshops before the next race, while others will drive straight to Slovakia for the next race.

MY THOUGHTS ON MOROCCO......I have no desire to return to Morocco. I have tried using different shipping agents to help my our journey through this corrupt port system and each of them has had its problems. My 3 visits there have all been very traumatising. I resent being treated with contempt when I have done nothing wrong. I do not like the uncertainty of the police and customs processes. I cannot condone the bribery and corruption that myself and others have seen with our own eyes. Tangiers Med 2 port still has major problems that need to change. The security aspect is slightly better but is far from good. I do not like being offered to buy drugs or have my money changed back to Euros by people who should not even be in a secure area.

THINGS NEED TO CHANGE.

History has shown that a country needs good leadership. If the authorities are corrupt, how can it expect to set a good example to its citizens. And for people like us who are forced to go to these countries and work, it makes our life bloody difficult. A group of us were sat outside a cafe in Algeciras, waiting to clear customs, when a man came up to us and asked where he could find the office of the boat company to buy a ticket to Morocco. Everyone spoke at the same time and said to him, "YOU DON'T WANT TO GO THERE". And that will be our reply to anyone in future, even if it is just for a holiday.
If anyone reading this is Moroccan or thinks this blog has racist overtones, it is not my intention and I apologise. I have only told the story as it has happened.
I think that the King of Morocco,s son, who helped organise this race, needs to direct his attentions towards making the country a better and safer place for its people. Allowing a motor sport event does very little to help the people, like the stowaways around the port. They are desperate to leave their homeland because it can offer them nothing. Race teams coming to this country only serve to provide more money to the corrupt authorities, not the Moroccan citizens.

I would like to thank all the WTCC truckies for all their help and information during this trip. Special thanks also to "Moisty"(Virtuosi), Pete(Super Nova) and Rob(LED Screen Hire)


A new circuit for WTCC awaits us in Slovakia. Thank goodness we dont have to drive there via Morocco!