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Despite a
fairly late night, I was up and about at 7 a.m. and eating breakfast not long
after at Le Cheval Blanc. The various Tourists also surfaced and as we
were very keen to catch the Group C support race, we hit the road again before 9
o'clock.
In fact we
walked into the circuit from the garage rouge just as the warm-up for the main event came to an
end and in the pleasant morning sunshine we took a walk down to the Esses to
watch the Group C race from there.
For me, the Group C
race brought back an awful lot of terrific memories of my first few years at Le
Mans in the mid to late 80's, particularly the sight of gorgeous Silk Cut
Jaguars and even some of the lovely little C2 cars.
At the end of
the Group C race, the Tourists headed back towards the tribunes, but it was time
for me to leave them to it as I had a rather important meeting to
attend!
I was a bit
early for the Ten Tenths meeting and as I toured the shops in the Village I
first bumped into the boys from Planet
Le Mans, who kindly
presented me with one of their hats and proceeded to take large numbers of
photographs! Before long, I was reunited with my "Official French
Correspondent" Monsieur Fab.
It wasn't
long before the square in the Village was literally crowded with Ten Tenths
members, including Francis, Pascal, Liz, Mags, Rob, Nordic, Ker, Gilles, Allon
(and no doubt lots of others whose names now escape me as I write this far
too long after the event!).
After
enjoying the champagne, Fab and I took up our places in the pits grandstand -
once again, I thank Fab for his wonderful friendship and generosity. So
there I was again, soaking up the atmosphere in area 3, row 9, seat 42, watching
the pre-race parade and festivities that I enjoy so much. If you go, yes,
the race is what its all about, but the parade is essential viewing -
make sure you don't miss it!
The weather
was good, my spirits had already been raised by the delights of champagne on a
Saturday lunchtime. What more could I want than to be sitting in the
grandstand at Le Mans with 3 hours to go before the start of the world's
greatest sporting event?
Well, perhaps some HT
girls.......
It
wasn't long before Fab and I were joined by Bernard. Bernard has his
own excellent Le Mans site at
http://www.ifrance.com/Brothier/
After you're finished here, pay him a visit - I have to admit that he gets
his pictures up a lot quicker than me...... ;-)
Its
surprising how quickly those two or three hours of pre-race preparation go
and almost before you know it the cars are lined up ready for their green
flag lap (if they still call it that?).
And as
4 p.m. French-time ticks inexorably round, its show-time once again!
Its
surprising how quickly Le Mans settles down into a rhythm, with the
fastest prototypes lapping the slowest of the GTs within just a handful of
laps. Of course, down the field, there are plenty of battles, not
only within the classes themselves, but also between the classes, as the
drivers of the fastest and slowest cars in various categories soon find
out.
After a
couple of hours in the grandstand, Fab and I wandered down to the Dunlop
Chicane where we witnessed (on screen) the dramas between the #8 and #2
Audis, which certainly livened up the early stages of the race.
Not
long after the Audi crash, I said farewell to Fab as he made his way back
to his swimming pool in Nantes (!), and made my own rendezvous with the
Tourists - at the champagne stall, of course!
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