It was like all my Christmas's had come at once. First time in France; First time camping; First time at a race track.
I was given the opportunity to go this year with a massive thanks to David Murfet, who gave me a spare ticket after a couple of his friends dropped out. This weekend was special as it also doubled as a friend's Stag weekend. Two vehicles set off from South London: - a rather large mini-bus with TV, fridge, playstation, generator, and plenty of camping equipment & BamBam - David's V8 Westie. Eight of us headed towards Dover where the ferry awaited. We got across to Calais with little effort, other than lifting the odd beer, and got off again hassle-free. I was in France!
Our first port of call was the nearest supermarket to pack up on beer and food. Of course, most of it went on beer :-) Then the journey started proper. I fail to remember how many kilometres but, I remember the journey in BamBam! As we got closer to Le Mans all the roads started to merge and the exotic cars started to drive by.thick and fast (although we were getting admirable looks, as well as the various Ferarris and Lotus's). One nice moment was a small group of children on the outside of a roundabout with a big cardboard placard reading "ACCELERATE, PLEASE"
Once into the race complex we headed towards our designated camp-site at the Technopark. The road approaching the park was packed solid with spectators watching the cars roll along. Each car done two or three laps of the roundabout, with plenty of sideways action whilst getting squirted with water-pistols. The next inpromptu stop was for a burnout, which David was only too happy to oblige!
Once the campsite was set up we were entertained with the spectacle of many cars doing donuts on the field on which we had camped. Even a transit was giving it a go, much to the amusement of the crowd.
I'll not fill in the blanks of the race, suffice to say that it was fantastic. The looks, the sounds and the atmosphere. I enjoyed every minute. I'm sure anyone else who went felt the same.
The drive home was almost as uneventful as the journey home. BamBam had decided to quickly overheat early on in the journey, probably caused by too many donuts on an uneven surface. It was easily solved. We met another V8 Westie owner in the garage on the way back. The car's name was, "Henry the Eighth" which, apparently, was owned by someone in Cambridgeshire. Anyone recognise it? My only disappointment was that I didn'y get to see any Lamborghini's whilst I was at Le Mans. Even more disappointing was that an orange Murcielago came past us follwed by various other performance cars such BMW M3's and Nissan Skyline's trying desperately to keep up. I didn't have enough time to get my camera out and my camcorder had ran out of power hours beforehand :-( The traffic-jams were frequent but, it quickly weaved it's way past one, then another, then another. I did manage to get a rear shot of a rather nice Ultima. It looked a bit fat but, I didn't get much time to look at it!
Altogther, I had a fantastic time and took away lots of superb memories. I hope that I can top them up in a future visit.
Enjoy the pictures. And... I'll be adding video footage of various areas once I get it digitised.
Neil
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