SBK Australia 2022 | Page 67

THE LONGEST HAUL ยท OFFICIAL PROGRAMME
Like the instruction manual for your bike says , reassembly is the reverse of removal , so all the stuff will go back to Europe after this weekend , via Avalon and Doha . In all around 130 metric tonnes of material are flown to these long haul races . There is a huge cost in all of this , of course , but the average free allowance to the teams is between 1,000 and 2,500kg depending on the WorldSBK / WorldSSP , team and if they have one rider or two .
The potentially biggest issues are customs controls , as in some of the countries they will want to scan all the crates . Which takes a lot of time . Around 50 people ( truckers , handling personnel , customs liaison staff ) are involved in the whole process on each route . Some Dorna World Organization staff will be away from home for 40 consecutive days , as they will be travelling together with the crates . They must also survey all transport by road , have to be present during the customs operations and must provide all ATA travel carnets that the teams have to create to account for every expensive nut and bolt .
The time gap between Argentina ( 21-23 October ) and Indonesia ( 11-13 November ) helps a lot in making that very long hop from one edge of South America to the opposite edge of Asia , but then it was just a few days until they had to be ready at PI . It takes at least a day to set up everything once the stuff gets to the next paddock and half a day to tear everything down .
So how many flight cases are we even talking about anyway ? No less than 320 full crates were flown around the globe to make this weekend - and the two previous interlinked long hauls - a racing reality .
As we can see from the facts , figures and evidence of collective endeavour , there is no small feat of international logistics involved when WorldSBK gets to flex its intercontinental muscles to arrive here in Australia for a special flyaway finale to the 2022 WorldSBK season .
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