An easy run for day 1 of the 2014 Italian Job saw us heading to Belgium from Calais along the Service van route. The principle is simple…. Follow the prescribed route and if you break down wait, for the service van will be close behind. One or two minor mechanicals got sorted along the way by the ever efficient service crew headed by Gareth and Paul and all teams that were due in arrived safely at the Radisson Blu in Spa. A lovely hotel in this quaint Belgium F1 city.
The service crew has a secret weapon in its arsenal to keep an even closer eye than normal on the minis. SkyTag GPS monitors fitted to most teams mean that Gareth and Paul can see within 1m accuracy exactly where our teams are at any given moment. It’s a brilliant way of making sure our teams are where they are supposed to be and also where they are in case of a breakdown. The Sky-Tag.co.uk website will track the Italian Job from Oct 23rd so log on and check us out to see where we are. You should get a view like this:
Seeing tech stuff like this makes me think back to 1990 and our first ever run, where a few scraps of paper, a hotel leaflet with a crude location map on, and some very loose directions were all that our 55 pioneering teams had to navigate by. Times have changed and thanks to the guys at Sky-Tag I’d say they’ve improved immeasurably too.
Today we have a short hop down to the famous Nurburgring and a return after almost 20 years to the Dorint Hotel. All teams are excitedly looking forward to the run and to the Ring….. safe in the knowledge that behind them the service van is sweeping the road and charting their progress online in real time….
