Archive for November, 2010

Solving the issue of crew transport.

The service crew are absolutely pivotal in a successful campaign in any rally event. Ensuring they have transport that can safely and reliably cart them and all service equipment from bivouac to bivouac is essential.

Over the duration of the event, the GHR support truck will travel something in the order of 7,000km at a maximum of 90 km/h. Delays setting up at service points because of mechanical problems could spell disaster because the team needs enough time to service 4 race bikes at each stop. Loss or breakage of parts and equipment have the same potential for stopping the show. At the end of a transport, the last thing the crew needs is to be left wondering where a spanner or spare part is! Time will be best spent driving, working, eating and sleeping (not necessarily in that order).

Because of the costs and time involved with transporting a vehicle which doesn’t fit in a container are so high if leaving from Australia, the decision was made to source a service truck in Europe and to do all the necessary work on it there prior to the event.

The support truck needs to be a complete rolling workshop. Steve (The Ginger Ninja) was sent over from Australia to the UK to perform the modifications. These included building and fitting the roof rack, fitting a crane, fabrication of the work bench area in the back of the truck body, changing all power points to suit Australian power tools (240v generators were shipped in the container) and fabrication of a ladder to access the roof.

The not so blank canvas, before it was given the GHR treatment.

This is going to be home for 7,000 gruelling kilometers. At least it has slots in dashboard for Vegemite sandwiches.

Race seats, race harnesses and full roll cage. Serious stuff!

The truck was acquired with rollover protection and race seats already fitted, saving a huge amount of time. Steve also fitted an number of tyres and tubes to rims to carry as spares.

Time turned out to be of the essence. It was only the week after Steve finished his work and flew home that England was subjected to -25°C conditions, plunging the whole country into white-out.

The truck was driven on to the ferry from the UK to Le Havre, France on 24 November, and then shipped sea freight to Buenos Aires. It is due to arrive around Christmas and the crew will have access to it on 28 December.