Here we go again, The second part of our first guest written post, sit and enjoy our increasingly hospitalble French friends!!
……In the meantime I went back with my truck folder which had the VOSA measurements for the trailer in it, and presented this to the clerk. He refused to acknowledge this, and got quite irate. He told me to speak French or Italian, or not at all! Luckily the next truck in the queue (which had now stopped as the tunnel was closed – broken down truck stuck in it!) was from a rival racing team, and he spoke Italian. The kind gent liaised between myself and the very upset clerk, and even though he would not accept that the truck normally travels through the tunnel, did point out the one place he said it was too wide. It looked like something was sticking out through the sheet. Then my backup arrived, on masse! With the lead driver were two other drivers, and one of them was the mechanic for the group. The lead driver immediately shook the clerks hand, which caught him off guard, why didn’t I think of trying to charm him? They then set about climbing inside the trailer via a gap in the sheet at the back, and I could hear ratcheting noises going on, and the protruding piece of sheet shrank back into profile. I cheerfully went to fetch the clerk, convinced they had done it, he took one look and said ‘Non’! When the lead driver tried to ask him why, he just turned and walked off. Well, he wasn’t getting away with being rude (didn’t he know who we were!), so my lead driver collared him and asked him to explain himself, and not to be rude. He told me to go to the top, and it the tunnel control say yes, then it’s ok, but he was saying a firm no. I had two options. Either turn around and head for the Frejus Tunnel, and not make it into Italy tonight, or go to the top and see what they said. As the drivers near the top were telling me on the radio they were still queuing, I decided to chance the tunnel control guys quickly getting rid of me as they had a backlog to clear, so off up the mountain I set.
The drive up to Mont Blanc is steep and twisty, I really do prefer the Frejus! Around one of the bends about halfway up I found the back of the queue. People were out of their cars stretching their legs and taking photos of the mountain, so I joined them. After about half an hour worth of hill starts I reached the top, passed through the heat detector with no problems and parked by the fridges waiting for escort. I spotted one of the tunnel control guys, and asked him to measure the trailer. ‘2.70m, exceptionnel’ he announced, ‘escort at 22:00’ he added. ‘What? So it’s grown since the bottom of the mountain, and so has the escort time?’. Remaining as calm as I could I asked to to point out where it was too wide, and he pointed to a totally different spot! He told me if I could pull the load in a bit he would let me through, but there was a chance an oncoming truck would hit the bit that was sticking out! I nearly responded with the fact that my mirrors stuck out more than the load, but instead radioed back to the trucks at the bottom, and got into the trailer to see if I could see anything that could be adjusted. Near the front of the trailer, one of the floor sections looked like it extended out sideways, and had not been closed up properly, and it was secured around the rest of the floor section with a ratchet strap, so there was hope. I spent about 45 minutes sweating inside the trailer but could not tighten the strap on my own, I needed to wait for the others. When they arrived they promptly jumped in to help, and again managed to pull the load inwards. I confidently went to find the controller, and a team of blokes with measuring sticks descended on the truck, and announced ‘Non exceptionnel, escort midnight’! While I was taking this information in and trying to see why it was still not good enough, the measuring team visited one of the other trucks that had stopped to help me, the lead driver’s. They measured it and announced ‘exceptionnel’! We were stunned. The lead driver explained that not only have the trucks been using the tunnel for four years, one identical to his had gone through an hour previously. ‘No it hasn’t, it isn’t possible’ was the reply! They also couldn’t explain why the electronic measuring system at the bottom had given them clearance while their hand measurement had deemed the trailers too wide. We got nowhere arguing, so decided to try and find a hotel in France and use the Frejus tunnel in the morning. When we mentioned the fact were weren’t going to wait until midnight, when we were first told 17:00, a man went running off and came back and proudly announced they would fit us in at 22:00, gee thanks! We managed to book a hotel in Chambery, and bidding farewell to our comrades with ‘normal width’ trucks we started back down the mountain.
The road back down is steep and twisty too, and you hug the mountain wall in places, and so are limited to around 70kmh most of the way. The retarder on the Mercedes is excellent and I hardly touched the brakes all the way down. The speed limit and obvious danger of the road didn’t stop a Bulgarian Volvo FH from blasting past us in a particularly twisty section. Moments later as we rounded another bend the lead driver shouted on the radio to watch for the Bulgarian, as he was trying to reverse up the motorway. I rounded the bend to find his cab slewing into the offside lane as he tried to correct his direction. Luckily the car that was overtaking me cleared me in time for me to switch lanes and avoid him, and the Dutch tanker behind me that had been itching to get past managed to stop. It appeared he was trying to reverse back to a small service station we had gone past on a previous bend-utter madness. I managed to give a ‘blast’ on the pathetic Mercedes horn and show him exactly what I thought of him with a coffee advert hand gesture as my cab went past his! We found the hotel in Chambery easily in a business park, and with no available parking stopped on the pavement opposite. After a great meal in meat grill restaurant on the estate we decided on a 4am start and hit the sack.
Friday morning was decidedly dark at 4am, but was a barmy 22 degrees! We reached the Frejus within an hour, climbed the gentle gradient, went straight to the empty booths and with no hassle at all transited the tunnel. At the bottom of the hill near Susa we stopped to fit the Convoi Exceptionnel equipment.
Two more flashing lights on the roof (one was already fitted on the rear) and boards back and front made me legal for Italy. We had a 45 minute break at Novara, filled with diesel and shortly arrived on the outskirts of Milan. Following the lead driver off the motorway I was amazed that with only a week to go there were no signs directing people to the Monza circuit, and I would have had trouble had I been on my own as even the village of Monza wasn’t signed until you were very near it. The circuit is within a public park area, and several large speed humps slowed us while we raised the air suspension on the low ride tractors to stop them grounding.
When we reached the paddock area the rest of the lads had arrived and were stuck into washing the first of the trucks. It was only 9am but as a hot day had been forecast they were trying to get them done before it got too hot. The paddock area our trucks were in was full of gleaming Ferrari trucks……
…….and a few smaller teams that were already cleaned and parked up. The other paddock area nearby was a hive of activity and had all the race team trucks in being washed down. We parked our two trucks to one side, as they were too hot to wash (there is a real science to the race teams wash procedures) and joined the others in hand washing the fleet. Working in two teams they are hosed down, scrubbed with shampoo on telescopic brushes, rinsed off then dried with telescopic squeegee’s and chamois cloths so no water marks are left. The time consuming cleaning shows fantastic results. There are no scratch marks from truck wash brushes, no faded paint from power washes and chemicals, they are immaculate, chassis included, and trailers too. It was hard work though, and after a quick lunch break at the circuit cafe, we sweated in the 30 degree heat and had them all done and parked up around 4pm. I had to take all the Convoi Exceptionnel gear off the truck, not good for the image you know! A final job was to unscrew all the Mercedes star grill logos and put them in the cab. Apparently as the parking areas are in a public park race fans have been known to steal them from the truck as a momento! Then it was off to the hotel in Milan for a wash, out for pizza, and then an early night. I was ribbed by some of the others for not staying out later, but as I pointed out some of us had got up at 3am and done a ‘days’ driving to get there while they were snoring in their beds! We had an early flight home the next day, and that really was the end of my season. The full time lads had a week at home, then were back out to Milan to bring the trucks home after the final race of the European calendar. It had been a frustrating trip at times, but I had enjoyed every minute of it. It sure beats sitting on the M25 or plodding up and down the M1 to earn a living!
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