[Graham]

There's contact details on the box, has the courier contacted anyone with this bad news?

I need to access the damage for myself before I place any kind of claim.

[Graham]

I think that maybe the only way to get these cars safely between rounds is to deliver in person by mutual meet up.

Maybe sort the hosts by geographical location (Kevan may have to swim across the Irish Sea.

Gerry

I have personally delivered the cars to 2 of the Rounds for this proxy, so not such a crazy idea. But as you say some of the more remote hosts might have more of a problem. 

I will have to have a think about how to manage the next proxy as this transferring the cars is becoming a nightmare.

I can tell you that at this point I feel very disheartened

[woodcote]

Oh Graham, that is so disheartening 

I know how meticulous you are with packaging and I only half jokingly say that your proxy boxes would probably survive a nuclear bomb blast…

DPD have really outdone themselves this time.

Happy to do some road miles for future proxies, if that would help?

[JasonB]

This is terrible for everyone concerned. 

Even taking their usual incompetence into account, it's difficult to understand how they have caused so much damage.

[Brumos RSR]

Graham, are there different couriers available?  If so, I’m more than willing to pay 5-10 more for a courier to deliver our cars properly.   This can be disheartening for a Race Director as we had this happen in the Trans Am Proxy….Everyone bounced back so don’t get discouraged…

[AdeC]

This is terrible, and I feel for all the entrants who put the effort and money into building their cars, to have them mistreated by a courier like this. And I feel bad for you Graham; I've never known a proxy host put so much effort into securely packaging vehicles for transit, so for this to happen is doubly frustrating.  I'd be intrigued to know what damage/vandalism happened to the original box to warrant them repacking everything. Hopefully DPD will be able to provide some kind of explanation/recompense for their sh*te service.

[Graham]

To me it is inconceivable that this could have been a simple case of dropping the box, the inside is lined with rigid foam and each box of cars is held within its own foamed case with solid lid and base.

In this proxy I have intentionally had the cars returned to me after almost every round, in order to check over the cars for race damage issues and to check the outer box, if need be I have changed over the outer box when I found it looking a bit worn. There was also FRAGILE contents labelling all around the box.

The fact that the outer box is missing, means that somehow it must have been damaged beyond use, which I find very distressing. The only thing which might have helped in those circumstances would if the foamed boxes inside had the lids taped down to prevent the cars escaping, when the outer box was torn off.

I am completely at at loss at to how this act of vandalism could have occurred, and being that the nature of these on line delivery services I doubt I will ever  to the bottom of it, in these days of bot chat lines etc. I will make a claim of course, and probably get compensation, but an explanation would likely be beyond their communication skills.

I am truly sorry that somehow I misjudged just how bad these couriers can be, it is just beyond my belief. And I feel personally responsible on their behalf. And I feel embarrassed especially in front of our overseas entrants who hopefully get better service from their courier providers then we do.

I am not sure about what can be done, or whether using a more expensive service guarantees better handling, the domestic customer reviews in the UK are not particularly favourable to anyone.
Perhaps “Securicor” sending a dedicated van might, but that leads us back to personal deliveries that Gerry suggested with fewer hosts in a more localised region.

I really don’t know at this stage about what to do to regaining lost confidence in what we are trying to do in regard to proxy racing in the UK.

[Kevan]

It's disgraceful that the courier couldn't be bothered to let anyone know this has happened.  They must have taken photos as evidence.

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Three or four years ago I was resin printing bodyshells for a customer in the USA, the last order was for around $800, there were many bodyshells in the box, safely packaged.
When the box arrived, the customer sent me photos of the contents which looked like someone had opened the lid and trod on the contents, smashing a lot of them.

I had to reprint the broken ones and that was the last time I printed for customers.

So my first thought when seeing Colins photos was the same thing, someone looting through parcels for valuables, those type of people are about unfortunately.

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I like to give anyone the benefit of the doubt, accidents happen but maybe we need a much stronger box, something like an old fashioned tea chest, plywood reinforced.  The cardboard used in these packing boxes is very soft as I always see by the damage on the outside which I tape round before sending it back to Graham.

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You must be gutted Graham, obviously you feel responsible but this isn't any of your fault.

I used to work with an old guy who would say 'Nil desperandum' (never let the bast*rds grind you down) in a case like this.

It's unfortunate, sh*t happens, just as the proxy was getting interesting too.

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Of course the next question is what about the current state of this proxy, there's no definitive results which means it wouldn't be fair to pick winners from current positions.

[Graham]

General Announcement
Although this was probably my worst nightmare come true, I am of mind to continue as planned with the next proxy. For obvious reasons the current one had to be terminated as the cars could not be fairly run due to the mishanding of the cars.
However it seems to me that the main issue was that the cars came out of the internal storage boxes when the outer box was demolished. So I will have to redesign the internal boxes with some kind of internal sealing or over covers to prevent the cars coming out of these should a similar incident happen in the future.
Perhaps a taping the lids shut and an over zip fastening bag as well.

Even by changing the delivery service (which I will do) probably would not prevent this happening again, so I must assume that the outer box is not secure enough on its own.

[Kevan]

Maybe something from these guys - http://ehammond.co.uk/plywood-cases-meta...ea-chests/