My trip over to Spa Belgium Diary & Photos

As my usual working week usually consists of RDC’s or Tesco’s loading bays, I’ve never bothered doing a diary before. But I got a phone call Sunday evening and thought it might be worth taking the camera…

After the Valencia Formula One Grand Prix on Sunday, all the gear had to be moved to Spa in Belgium ASAP for the next weeks race. As most of you will know, Stobart do the Brawn teams logistics, and had the task of getting the 12 trucks there.

A number of drivers flew out to Valencia on Sunday to double-man up to Metz in Northern France, where myself and 7 other drivers would take over for the last few hours to Belgium.

So, into Crick for 6am where we boarded Laura Abby…ooooh errrr missus…the Stobart coach

This was my view for the trip down to Dover and into France

A break at the services just after Reims

We arrived in Metz around 7pm and stayed overnight in the Campanile Hotel (what a dump!) Up at 5 next morning to go meet the lads who had driven up from Spain. Several were there waiting for us and the changeover was going well until 2 trucks went hurtling past the services having missed the turn. A quick phone call and we were back on the bus up the road to meet them in the next rest area.

This is where I was introduced to my ride for the day…

Bit of a shock when I found out it was a left-■■■■■■!

Now, only ever driven one once and that was at least 10 years ago, but soon got the knack after running on the rumble strip a few times

Looks like we got ourselves a convoy

All was going well as we went through Luxembourg and Germany, but just over the Belgian border a police van came slowly down the side of me, pulled in front, and signalled me into the lay-by. A quick check of the CMR and vignette and I was free to go…just one small problem…the rest of them had driven off as I was 2nd to last in the convoy. I had no map, address, sat-nav or anything! Whoops!!!

Anyway, I plodded on thinking at least one or two of them might have stopped up the road, but no, and then I saw a sign for Spa. I followed this off the main road and then noticed a very small sign for “THE PADDOCK”…and figured that must be what I need to follow.
About 5 miles passed when I came across the entrance to the circuit and followed this road up into the main paddock area

Arrived to where all the other trucks were, but no sign of the other ones or the bus that I had been following

Sat for about 20 minutes waiting for the Ferrari guys to unload the tail-lifts before backing further up to the garages, so had a quick recce and took some truck snaps

Looking down into another part of the paddock you could see some of the hospitality units being set up

Some amazing peices of kit, that must be worth £1000’s

Finally found a couple of the Brawn trucks, and they told me the others hadn’t arrived yet…so I begin wondering if they had waited for me and I hadn’t seen them? Walked down into the lower paddock to see if it was clear to get my truck through and ended up back at the gate where the bus and the other trucks had just arrived, at least an hour after me having getting lost and approaching the circuit from the wrong way and getting turned round

After delighting in giving them coffee bean signs and confirming that there really were drivers and screwdrivers, we parked up and had a little wander round before all getting on the coach for home

This is a picture of part of the circuit, and I was amazed how steep the hill was…

Back on the coach and a three and half hour dash for the boat, which we made with ten minutes to spare…nice meal on board and back into Crick for 10pm to unload the ■■■■ and booze then home to Rotherham by 11.30 with a day off to look forward to tomorrow

PS A quick sorry to the Stobart Chilled driver on the M1 near Northampton who must of had a bit of a shock as 30 of his fellow drivers went past on a bus making hand gestures and showing various body parts to him

Excellent, nice one for beating the others. Love the bit at the end about the chilled guy too.

somreally nice photo’s. what does the stobart bus do normally? don’t tell me they’re going into coach trips as well!!!

welshboyinspain:
somreally nice photo’s. what does the stobart bus do normally? don’t tell me they’re going into coach trips as well!!!

Not sure to be honest, driver said he does all sorts. I think its there for when Stobart’s need it, and on general hire when they dont. He said they have done holidays, but it was just hire of bus & driver, not Stobart organized. Its not the one that is used by Carlisle United though.

nice one, i didnt know stobart did the transport, how come they are not marked as stobart?

euromat:
nice one, i didnt know stobart did the transport, how come they are not marked as stobart?

Again not sure really…there were 2 plain white DAF’s, about 4/5 white and black mercs with Stobart chevrons round the bottom, and the rest were silver mercs in various shapes and sizes lettered with Freemans Hospitality. Non of the other trucks had company names on either as far as I could see, maybe its a rule of the F1 teams?

Excellent pics, thanks. So that’s what ING are spending my savings on?

ho hum

DS074:

euromat:
nice one, i didnt know stobart did the transport, how come they are not marked as stobart?

Again not sure really…there were 2 plain white DAF’s, about 4/5 white and black mercs with Stobart chevrons round the bottom, and the rest were silver mercs in various shapes and sizes lettered with Freemans Hospitality. Non of the other trucks had company names on either as far as I could see, maybe its a rule of the F1 teams?

More likely to do with any sponsorship deal. If you are not paying any money in, you’re not getting any free advertising out!

I know Ted Chamberlain from Crewe had his name painted on the back of the cab when they pulled the HM Plant BSB trailer, but maybe F1 or Ross Brawn are a bit cuter or smarter

euromat:
nice one, i didnt know stobart did the transport, how come they are not marked as stobart?

I know you’ve been away with u2 mat but there have been so many posts on here about stobart and f1 i don’t know how you could have missed them
just out of interest now you’re off for a month did you take the truck home or is it back to suffolk for the truck then home for you

looks good certainly makes a change, bet you had a bump back to reality though.

Great read and photos fella thanks for putting it up

That pic up the hill is Eau Rouge if I’m not mistaken.

You need big testicles to go up there flat out!!!

Ken.

welshboyinspain:

euromat:
nice one, i didnt know stobart did the transport, how come they are not marked as stobart?

I know you’ve been away with u2 mat but there have been so many posts on here about stobart and f1 i don’t know how you could have missed them
just out of interest now you’re off for a month did you take the truck home or is it back to suffolk for the truck then home for you

mat lives in suffolk very close to the yard mate

steve o:

welshboyinspain:

euromat:
nice one, i didnt know stobart did the transport, how come they are not marked as stobart?

I know you’ve been away with u2 mat but there have been so many posts on here about stobart and f1 i don’t know how you could have missed them
just out of interest now you’re off for a month did you take the truck home or is it back to suffolk for the truck then home for you

mat lives in suffolk very close to the yard mate

got the impression that he lived in weymouth and he said last week he was tipping cardiff then going home just assumed he meant that way but obviously he went back to yard then home
where does all the stuff they pull around go when the tours are finished? is there some big company that hires and then stores all that equipment?

a lot of the time it gets flown to somewhere like the usa where the tour continues but a lot of stuff is owned by normal companies and they want it back at the end of the tour so for example the barriers will go to abc barriers in belgium, the spotlights/lights will go to abc lighting in london and the catering stuff will go to abc catering in birmingham. he was born in weymouth (cant say grew up as he hasnt yet!!) but is a suffolker now!!

i knew he was born in weymouth from facebook, he puts more photos on there than on here.
any idea what gets taken to cardiff after the tours? thats where he was going before his hols.
i remember i used to work on an industrial estate near a company that did catering for films and stuff but tescos bought the whole ind est for a huge shop and no idea where the company went. lots of event stuff in cardiff with the bbc making so many programmes there. Dr who, torchwood, casualty (moving from bristol) and plenty of stuff you probably wouldn’t watch unless you get welsh tv

DS074, as you can see from my pic Brawn do signwrite some of their trucks. You may well find they only signwrite the front line trucks ie the ones that park in the paddock and are seen on tv in the background when the commentators are doing their bit to camera.The other trucks are parked out of the way so no need for advertising, and on the road it helps not to draw attention to the trucks, although ours were not written we still had people taking pictures in services, and customs officers stopping you to ‘check documents’ (see if any freebies on offer). I did a similar job, but wish I’d had had such a short distance to drive! We flew to Montpellier (with McLaren) and did the drive from there. We had to take ours onto the circuit to park so they could unload the gear, and were told to drive up ‘that hill’ to spin round, turned out to be Eau Rouge, and yes it is unbelievably steep, and standing at the top of the hill by the start of the pits, and seeing the whole layout I got goosebumps imagining the cars flat out through this section, yes you need balls! Here is is, I have a few more pics if you want to see, but as this is your thread didn’t want to just stick em on ! Lastly, well done for getting there, I cannot believe they didn’t give you written instructions, including a map, and also warn you it would be a left ■■■■■■!!!

‘that hill’

looking back from Eau Rouge towards pits

Mclaren truck carrying hospitality unit parts

driving the wrong way past the pits

the other trucks come to join us

welshboyinspain:
i knew he was born in weymouth from facebook, he puts more photos on there than on here.
any idea what gets taken to cardiff after the tours? thats where he was going before his hols.
i remember i used to work on an industrial estate near a company that did catering for films and stuff but tescos bought the whole ind est for a huge shop and no idea where the company went. lots of event stuff in cardiff with the bbc making so many programmes there. Dr who, torchwood, casualty (moving from bristol) and plenty of stuff you probably wouldn’t watch unless you get welsh tv

im not sure how i missed about stobart and the f1 scene

what do you mean about what gets taken to cardiff after the tour?

Some nice F1 truckie pics there, it seems as though the Belgiums are a bit more relaxed than some of the BSB jobs I have worked on. The teams were given very strict slots on the timetable to enter the circuits with timings to the minute.

There were some financial penalties if anyone was too early or even late without good reason and had not informed the event organisers. Apart from the chance of being close to the action, motorsport can be very hard work for the team drivers. But I loved it.

These Stobart lads are getting the glamour without the scraped knuckles fitting tyres or polishing your driver or riders helmet

Uh oh, some posh trucking
Very interesting pics; it’s good to see different aspects of road haulage, too.
Thanks for sharing