On Track Off Road No. 194

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TIME FOR REFLECTION...
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In the last few weeks of the year most people take time to
wind down, get ready for the Christmas holidays, and inevitably
reflect on the year. For me it tends to be more a time to
prepare for the coming year.
2019 is gone and I have to start
arranging travel and accommodation
for the first few races of the
forthcoming season. However, I am
now of an age that when I look back
things become a bit of a blur. It
seems like only the other day I was
doing exactly the same thing and
getting ready for another year on the
road. 2019 was pretty eventful and
like every year, despite doing more
or less the same thing, it threw up a
few curve balls that made it memorable.
When we get started in January everything
becomes super-condensed.
With WorldSBK there is such a short
time from the end of the testing ban
in January until the cut-off date in
February for the teams to have all
the freight packed, ready for collection
and transported to Australia for
the final test and first race of the new
season. I learned an interesting fact
a few years ago at the press launch
of the KRT team that they have shipping
containers that are simultaneously
travelling around the world by
sea. These contain the tool chests,
pit box displays and the kitchen for
the hospitality staff. This enables
them to fill their freight allowance
with Dorna with bikes, engines, and
as many spare parts as they can
fit in. It is also a cheaper option to
have shipping containers travelling
between Barcelona, Phillip Island,
Thailand, California, Argentina and
Qatar, than to pay for extra air freight
to transport everything they need
along with the bikes.
Nonetheless the last weeks in January
and first in February were jampacked
with tests, studio shoots,
team launches and then travel to
Australia. Last year I was involved
in the pre-season testing and studio
photoshoots for both WorldSBK and
MXGP and it meant three and a half
weeks on the road that took me from
southern Spain, to Portugal, back to
Spain and on to Sardinia.
The season then started with a bit
of a stutter. We are required to get a
temporary work visa for travelling to
Phillip Island which requires some
specific paperwork from the circuit
and Dorna to accompany the application.
This wasn’t made available
to the media until during that
period when I was on the road and
given my schedule it was a few days
before I had time to sit down and fill
the on-line application. It was still
three weeks till I was due to travel,
and in previous years it has taken
as little as two days to be approved,
but this time it never arrived in time.
So after a few days of frantic phone
calls and emails and about £1000
lighter in rebooked flights and rental
car, with help from the staff at Phillip
Island circuit, I finally got everything
in place and was on the way. At that
point I was filled with a bit of trepidation
for the rest of 2019: is this
year going to be one of hassles and
travel woes? In the end it wasn’t so
bad.