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1992
was a strange year in many ways. As
those of you who were watching it at the time
will know, international sports car racing
was in imminent danger of complete
collapse. After the success years of
the late 80's, when we saw magical battles
between Porsche, Jaguar and Mercedes, the
FISA decided to move the goalposts
completely, and although Jaguar and Mercedes
(and to a much lesser extent, Nissan and
Lola) built cars for both Le Mans and the
series (whatever it happened to be called at
the time!), it was almost as if the new
sports car formula had been designed both
with Peugeot and a ready supply of new 3.5
litre engines for F1in mind. Of course,
I'm not nearly cynical enough to suggest that
this really was the case.........
If
1991 had seen a depleted turn out at Le Mans,
1992 was even worse, with only 31 cars
arriving for scrutineering. It was with
this background that the Tourists
in 1992 ended up numbering only two, myself
and my good friend Peter (aka Pierre).
Ian, our normal Le Mans organiser, finally
bit the bullet and decided that with such a
poor field, it just wasn't worth going and
the rest of the usual team members followed
suit. For me, the thought of not going
to Le Mans was simply too much to bear, and I
was about to go it alone, when Jayne, my
long-suffering wife suggested that I should
ask Peter. Much to my delight, Peter
was very keen to join me.
We
decided that instead of driving over, we
would take the short and sweet coach tour
offered by Chequers (soon
to become Motor Racing International),
primarily because one of their tours happened
to pick up in Southampton, quite near to
where I live in the New Forest.
The
first picture you see is that of Pierre
sitting in the Maison Blanche grandstand on
Saturday morning, just before the start of
the morning warm-up. It was the first
time I had bothered buying grandstand seats,
but they turned out to be invaluable as it
was raining when we got to the circuit on
Saturday, and it stayed that way for most of
the rest of the weekend.
We
had the advantage of hospitality from Chequers
which gave us the chance to listen to
Jonathan Palmer and Johnny Herbert
(below). Herbert, a winner the year
before, was driving the glorious Jaguar,
sorry, Mazda, in that lovely orange and green
Renown/Charge colour-scheme.
Despite
the paltry size of the entry, the opening
laps of the race turned out to be as
exciting as any Le Mans I have
watched. Volker Weidler set off at an
extraordinary pace in the Mazda, passing both
of the Peugeots (on consecutive laps if I
remember rightly). Fortunately for me,
both of the passing manoevres occurred at the
Ford Chicane, right in front of me, and the
picture here shows Weidler passing the No 1
Peugeot for second place. We had to be
thankful though for the entry of the three
Toyotas, although not as strong ultimately as
the Peugeots, the TS010s were magnificent
looking cars and made the race worth while.
Ultimately,
however, the lead Peugeot of Warwick, Dalmas
and Blundell was able to stroke its way home
6 laps ahead of the second place Raphanel/Acheson/Sekiya
Toyota. Even the weather cheered up
towards the end of the race.
Those
who know me will know that one of my passions
is taking pictures at Le Mans at night.
I guess I'll never get that ultimate
light-trail picture now, due to the debris
fencing that has sprung up all around the
circuit in recent years, but our seats in the
Maison Blanche grandstand did give me a
perspective I had not seen before, and this
is just one of the shots that I took whilst
sheltering from the rain during the night.
Whilst
the trip was very different to those I had
taken part in over the previous 6 years, and
leaving on Friday night and returning home in
the early hours of Monday morning made it an
express trip, I certainly enjoyed myself,
despite the rain. I was sure that the
full team of Tourists
would be back together again in 1993.
1992
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