May 2010

The V8 Super Transporters

By Simon Farac

On a trip to the Bathurst 1000 last year I had the chance to go behind the pits and have a look at the trucks that carry the cars for the Australian V8 Supercar Championship. These trucks are some of the best looking units on Australian roads with all of the shiny chrome and stand out paint jobs.

While most teams have either cab over Kenworth’s or Freightliner Argosy’s tow their transporters there were also, Iveco’s, Volvo’s, MAN’s, Western Star and even an Isuzu.

Before leaving home the drivers of the trucks spend a lot of time polishing and getting all the paint work on their trucks as clean as possible as they know when they roll up to town all eyes will be on them for the convoy through the main street. Bathurst was no exception to this as the main street of the town was crowded with people turning up in the morning a day before any on track racing even started to watch the trucks come through in convoy and head out to the track on the edge of town. This is a great atmosphere with lots of people cheering as their favourite teams go past and all the drivers tooting their horns for people watching.

Over the next four days while all the transporters were parked behind the pits I had the chance to meet with David Aldridge who is the driver for the Sprint Gas Racing Team Transporter. David is a kiwi who used to drive a Freightliner FLB at NZL. He drives a Freightliner Argosy powered by a Cummins Signature engine. He was able to give me a tour through the pit bay and the transporter, and when you see how much gear and equipment they have there really isn’t a lot of space to store everything. The second trailer holds the teams two cars and all the spare parts. Spare parts include engines, transmissions, body panels, windows and many other items. When loaded there is no space to move so the teams really need to make sure that everything goes in at the right time. The front trailer is where team members store any personal belongings. It’s also a chill out area for the drivers and also for de briefing after a race, or qualifying. Some teams have a TV, microwave and other things to make it feel a bit more home like for the team.

Each transporter is custom built for each team and cost’s around AU$450,000. Then you also have the cost of the tractor unit of top of that so there is certainly alot of money put into these transporters before the cars or anything even go inside them. Some teams even have a second truck which is used solely for the use of merchandise sales.

After walking up and down behind the pits I would have to say in my opinion that best paint job goes to Team Vodafone and the Two V8 Supercar Kenworths. Holden Racing Team would have spent the most on their two Freightliners with all of the extra chrome accessories on both the truck and trailers. But my two favourite transporters are the Sprint Gas Racing and Garry Rogers Motorsport Transporters as the trucks look just right and both have a nice clean paint job.

I would also like to thank Dave Aldridge from Sprint Gas Racing for giving me the tour and also stopping on the front Straight on Sunday night after the race to let me get a couple of photos before he headed of home.

The V8 Super Transporters

Click to enlarge