Ride along for two big trips from motorsport truck drivers in MotoGP and Supercars

The videos below give us a great snapshot into life on the road in top-level motorsport. While these race transporters carry polar opposite equipment on vastly different stretches of tarmac in different hemispheres, the commitment to safely get their gear to the track for a race weekend is very similar.

And there’s one more thing they have in common; their modern Mercedes-Benz Actros prime movers doing the heavy hauling up front!

MotoGP – Mugello to Barcelona

We’ll start off with Wilko Kleine, who is driving one of two LCR Honda race transporters in the 2021 MotoGP World Championship. This vlog posted to Wilko’s YouTube channel begins on the plane ride to Florence Airport in Italy, which is roughly 30 minutes south of the Mugello Circuit.

Wilko takes us into the Mugello paddock on race day for the Italian Grand Prix. Unfortunately it turned out to be a difficult day for the satellite Honda team, with Takaaki Nakagami crashing out and Alex Marquez finishing in 14th place.

But the show had to roll on, with the team quickly packing up their two race transporters for back-to-back race weekends. That’s where we get rolling with Wilko in his Mercedes-Benz Actros, who sets off on a spectacular four-hour stint to the west before stopping for the evening at a service station outside Genoa.

There’s another 900 kilometres to cover the following day hugging the spectacular coastlines of France and Spain. And following a wash near the Barcelona circuit, the LCR Honda combination arrives at the Circuit de Catalunya in the early evening. The bikes of Alex Marquez and Takaaki Nakagami were delivered to Spain just a day later, which shows the efficiency of a top-flight MotoGP team on a tight schedule.

Ride shotgun with Wilko on the trip west below.

Supercars – Gold Coast to Darwin

This one is a little closer to home for us, but the destination is still over 4000 kilometres from any of the Repco Supercars Championship teams.

As Wilko’s MotoGP team packed up their gear from the Catalan GP, Gold Coast-based Supercar squad Matt Stone Racing was finishing preparations for its Holden Commodore duo to do battle in Darwin.

In this vlog for Matt Stone Racing/YellowCover, we catch up with the team’s popular truck driver, Donny MacGregor, immediately after his pre-trip check a few days later. He sets off to the west, catching up with Wayne Cowper in the Shell V-Power Racing team B-Double race transporter across the Toowoomba range that morning. The Matt Stone Racing rig covers 1200 kilometres on the first day, making it to Longreach in outback Queensland.

The second day sees the team’s B-Double race hauler chew up almost another Bathurst 1000 worth of tarmac to the north-west, crossing the Northern Territory border that evening.  

But that’s only half of the trip! Another full day of driving took Donny and the team transporter to Mataranca. And on the fourth and final day, Donny drives through Adelaide River just south of Hidden Valley Raceway and then completes the trip to the Darwin race facility. It’s an incredible commitment, made even more impressive by the fact that these drivers and their transporters would do it all again just five days later.

Ride with the Matt Stone Racing rig through the outback below.

You can follow Wilko’s travels through Europe on his YouTube channel, and Matt Stone Racing’s 2021 Repco Supercars Championship campaign on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube.

If you missed our social media posts, we’re taking Trucks at Tracks global next week. If you’re interested in racing rigs all over the world, you’ll love our global accounts on Facebook and Instagram.