OFFICIAL PROGRAMME new sponsors and so on , compared to 2020 . We don ’ t bother taking heavy things like cooling fans and so on , we hire them there . We have also hired portakabins , tables , chairs for the offices and garage .” There will be once central hospitality tent for the main Yamaha teams at the track in Argentina , and the hotel the team is staying in at San Juan will supply food at lunchtimes . One difference for the Crescent team after Brexit is that their trucks have to stay in Europe until the long hauls are finished , as the equipment they contain now and the material going to Argentina are already on a ‘ carnet ’ system from the UK to Europe . So that material has to go back to Europe to be loaded into the trucks before it goes back to the Crescent Yamaha team headquarters in Dorset , England ; the rest going to the Yamaha Europe headquarters in Milan , Italy . At time of press , the Crescent trucks drivers will not go home directly after Indonesia - everything is going direct from Argentina to Indonesia next - they will have to go and meet the flight cases wherever they arrive back into Europe , to then take all the materials back to either the UK or Milan . Complicated , isn ’ t it . Ands what ’ s this ‘ Carnet ’ system ? Paperwork , and lots of it … When anyone sends things - products , bike parts , anything almost - across a customs border , to ensure they are not sold without the relevant duty being applied they all have to be listed on the way across the border going out , so that when they come back the customs officer can check that everything on each individual list is still there - and has therefore not been sold without paying the duty - import or export tax . So that means listing everything that is inside the boxes , or inside the trucks going from UK to Europe , on a paper called a carnet . Not necessarily down to every nut and bold but down to enough detail that you cannot say - ‘ box of tools ’ that could include every piece of workshop kit used by the mechanics crammed into one big flight case . You don ’ t have to list every individual socket inside a socket set as one item on a carnet , but you do have to describe the socket set in question . Increasingly complicated , isn ’ t it ? And of course , because the material from all the WorldSBK teams is leaving from Europe to Argentina , then from Argentina to Indonesia for the final round , and then back to Europe , all those trips have
“ Most of our empty flight cases were in the UK , 12 of them , but some of them are used as storage inside the trucks , and are due to arrive on Saturday ”.
EXCITING CONTENT to also be covered by carnets from country to country . It is so complicated that not one person alone is responsible for every element of it . The person inside the Pata Yamaha with Brixx team charged with looking after all those kinds of box labelling and carnet lists , and making sure the hardware and so on in all inside the boxes it is supposed to be in , is Ashley Banks . He is one of the team truck drivers at European events and a ‘ tyre-man ’ ( although in 2021 they are , of course , not all men ). ‘ Ash ’ referred to the Dorna Superbike freight Operations manual , which tells the teams everything they need to do with their flight crates , the labelling system they need to adhere to , etc . Dorna gives each crate a unique number , with barcode , then instructions on how to carry hazardous good , batteries , insurance requirements - everything that has to be done to get an entire paddock from one continent to another , and all safely arrive at the same place at the same time . How is that done if you are in a team ? Well , consider that ‘ Team A ’ wants to take all ‘ these ’ items to the race . First they have to make sure that they can all be taken , that they do not exceed the weight limits each team is given inside its allocation . ‘ Standard shipments ’ are things that will go from the track to the next race , ‘ Extra Shipments ’ will be maybe come from somewhere else , not from the trackside with all the other bikes and parts . Once each team has understood what it is taking , and had created the relevant carnets , that information is uploaded online to the Dorna system . Yamaha uses a Dutch-based company to create and manage their carnets from Europe to the rest of the globe . These kinds of companies are also given ‘ Power of Attorney ’ to transport the freight and be responsible for collecting it at airports on behalf of the teams . The teams then fill in where to get the crates , where to sent it to , all the contact details and then the list of crates . Each crate - big flight case or smaller engine-carrying box or whatever - has to have a number , allocated by Dorna , so that they recognise it no matter where it is or who is looking for it . What is inside the crates can be altered of course , but that crate has its own identity - barcoded and logged into a database . Because each case has to be on an approved list Dorna knows the dimensions of that particular crate , and where it could fit inside the aircraft , after it is
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