By Karen E. Thuermer, AJOTWhat do motor sports enthusiasts and Qantas Freight have in common? That’s easy; V8 Supercars. For motor sports fans, there’s nothing better than the fire-breathing, fender-bending action of the Australian V8 Supercar Championship. Ever since this category of race car—loosely based on the Ford Falcon or Holden Commodore—was introduced to the Australian Touring Car Championship in 1997, its carnival street-race events have turned Australian touring car racing into a world-class product and Qantas Freight hot on the trail to transport these vehicles. For the Ford and Holden race team competing in the championship, there is no other airline they trust more than Qantas Freight to fly their valuable machines around the world. Each year the participants in Australia’s third most watched sport behind cricket and AFL, pack up their million dollar cars, teams and hundreds of spare parts to race along Australia’s Gold Coast. The cars are packed and shipped onward for additional races in New Zealand and Bahrain. In 2005 the event even included China in the circuit. The V8 Supercar model requires tender loving handling since each car is highly modified to suit the motor sport application. They are strictly governed in all aspects of performance to keep all drivers on an even footing to create closer, more exciting racing. By Australian standards, the race is huge. V8 Supercars draw crowds of 250,000 upwards. Its 2007 season was held over 14 race weekends on various purpose-built racetracks and street circuits. Race formats range from sprint races, where three 150 kilometer races are held over a weekend, or endurance races such as Bathurst, which is run over a 1,000 kilometer race distance, and Sandown, run over 500 kilometers. This year’s 14 weekend rounds run from Feb. 21 to Dec. 7 with races held in various locations in Australia, New Zealand, Tasmania, and Bahrain. Last year’s Desert 400 series was held in Bahrain between Nov. 3-4, an event for which Qantas Freight also transported the V8 Supercars. SUPERCARS GO AIR BOUNDManager Freighter Network Rod Knight describes the 2007 charter flights to Bahrain as a complex operation that is made easier with Qantas Freight’s extensive experience with motor-sport charters and the relationship, built up over many years, with the Championship’s forwarding agent Gibson Freight Australia. “We organized one return freighter service from Avalon in Victoria and another from Brisbane,“ Knight recalls. Each aircraft carried around 12 cars. Transporting the cars to Australia each year from their home turf in Indianapolis, Indiana is equally no easy feat. It involves the complicated logistics of shipping nearly 200 tons of cars and equipment . For starters the V8 Supercars must be shipped by air in specially built protective cradles to guarantee their safe passage. “We took the cars and equipment from the States to Brisbane and back again,” describes Larry Schneider, Qantas Freight spokesman. Qantas Freight organized two Boeing 747 freighter aircraft, each capable of carrying around 110,000 kilograms, to get the team’s equipment to the track on time and ready to race. “The charter flights are complex operations with each aircraft carrying cars and spare parts, associated tools and sundry items as well as up to three attendants, to be able to check on the equipment throughout its journey,” states Schneider. “The nature of the shipment means that dangerous goods are included.” This means Qantas Freight and the respective air freight forwarder must perform additional work to ensure all regulatory approvals are met. “This makes it quite a time-intensive operation for all concerned,” he says. But Qantas is well versed in handling these shipments since the carrier has handled them multiple times before. NATIONAL INSTITUTIONBack in Australia the V8 Supercars are a national institution. They generate as much excitement and passion as cricket, rugby and Aussie Rules football and