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ASA TRANSCONTINENTAL
SERIES...TAKING THE SHOW ACROSS THE SEAS
American Speed
Association PR
DAYTONA BEACH, FL (Monday, November 9, 2009) - Typically
when you visit your local track or a superspeedway, you will find a plethora
of haulers in the pits carrying the precious cargo otherwise known as a stock
car. For the American Speed Association Transcontinental Series, a
hauler is going to be replaced with a 40 foot container containing two stock
cars along with tires and tools on its way to Welkom, South Africa.
Andrew Senter of Southern Export Services based out of
College Park, GA is overseeing the challenge of shipping the cars and
equipment from the United States over to the Phakisa Freeway Oval in Welkom,
South Africa for the ASA Free State 500 event on January 31, 2010.
Currently, five containers are currently on their way to
South Africa with plenty more to be shipped out in the next 30 days.
"We are sending two cars going on an 40 foot ocean container and then
they go on an ocean cargo ship that can handle 4000-5000 containers at a
time," Senter explained. "We have already shipped out three
from Port of Charleston(SC) and two from Port of Long Beach(CA)."
The cargo could take up to 6-8 weeks to reach the Port of Durban, South
Africa. The cargo leaving the Port of Charleston will either stop and
be transferred in Rotterdam, The Netherlands; Antwerp, Belgium or Hamburg,
Germany while the Port of Long Beach shipments will either go through
Singapore or Hong Kong.
Most of the containers will be going out of the Port of
Charleston, "We find a warehouse in Charleston and the team arrives at
that warehouse and meets me," Senter said. "Together we load
the containers and strap, brace and block the cars and any other parts that
go in that container. They can use all of that container and you try to
maximize that space but you are limited in that sense that you cannot put
anything on top of the cars. In Long Beach, we built wooden platforms
above the cars and it gives you like two to three feet of space and you can
put your tires, wheels and other items in there."
One of the containers that is already en route to South
Africa are cars for Ron Barfield Jr., owner of Dillon Motor Speedway in
Dillon, SC, an ASA Member Track. Barfield will be driving one of the
cars at Phakisa. This is not the first time that he has prepared a car
to race overseas as he journeyed with Dennis Huth, ASA President, to compete
at the 1996 NASCAR event at the Suzuka Circuit. "When we got to
the shipping dock a couple of weeks ago, Andrew looked at me and said, you
have done this before right?" Barfield said laughing. "Then
he asked if I was going to be able to get everything in that container?
I said, you know what, I will have about two inches to leave before we close
the door. Andrew looked at me and said, son you don't have it in there
yet. He was joking around with me but the only thing we didn't get in
there was the generator but I had two inches to spare when I closed the
door."
Senter is very familiar with shipping race cars.
Southern Export is an international freight forwarder that does air and ocean
import & export. They have offices in Atlanta, Tulsa, Chattanooga
and Charlotte. They specialize in aerospace, perishables and
motorsports. They oversee the shipment of the Porsche and Audi LeMans
Series teams when they compete overseas.
When it comes to transporting cars to another country,
Senter starts out by looking at how long it will take to get from point A to
point B. Then he gets approval from U.S. Customs to export any motor
vehicle from the United States and imported into South Africa. An ATA
carnet, or a merchandise passport for boomerang freight, is then filled out with
details of everything that is going to be shipped in the container.
When it goes to ship, Customs will then approve the carnet by saying that
what is on the carnet is in the container and it usually needs no further
export approval. When it arrives in South Africa, South African Customs
will either accept the carnet that was signed by U.S. Customs or do their own
inspection at the Port of Durban. From there, a crane will load each
container onto a semi for it to be transported to Phakisa Freeway Circuit waiting
for the teams to arrive and unload for the event. After the event, the
same thing happens to return the cargo to the United States.
With this event happening during the off-season in the
United States, the decision to ship the cars by boat versus by air as other
race teams and organizations do was more for a cost savings reason.
"Other teams ship their cars by air because they don't have six weeks to
sit and wait for their cars," Senter explained. "They want
their cars up to the last minute and they are still working on the car until
its time to depart and as soon as it lands, they want it back in their hands
again. For many stock cars, they don't race again until the event in
January, so they can ship it for a third to a quarter of the price of what it
would cost by air."
So far Senter is enjoying his experience with the ASA
teams in preparing to ship their cars over to this inaugural event,
"They are very excited, for these teams to pick up and go somewhere
exotic like South Africa for the first time and for the first race, oh yeah
they are very excited," Senter said. "Its a big deal for
these teams. They may not have tons of money that the big companies or
factory teams have. They are doing pretty good, they are excited and I
think it will be great."
The final shipment will head out on December 7th.
For more information on Southern Export, please visit
their website at www.southernexport.com.
To learn more about Phakisa Freeway, visit
www.phakisa.com.
To learn more of the Daytona Beach, Fla.-based American
Speed Association call (386) 258-2221 or send an e-mail to
info@asa-racing.com. For news and information from all the racetracks and
regional tours involved in the ASA, visit www.ASA-Racing.com.
ASA™, ASA Racing™ American Speed Association® are
trademarks of Racing Speed Associates, LLC. ASA International, LLC or Racing
Speed Associates, LLC are not related to or affiliated with ASA Late Model
Series, LLC.
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November
9, 2009
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