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Once back to the very familiar surroundings of
the Hotel Restaurant Le Cheval Blanc, it was time for a wash and brush up
before dinner. In fact, there was also time for another surprise – Madame
suddenly produced a set of blue (appropriately Gulf blue, as it happens!)
t-shirts for all of us! Back in 2002 I'd kitted out all of the Tourists with
Aysedasi’s Le Mans t-shirts and even provided one for Madame, but never
expected to be presented with a t-shirt from Le Cheval Blanc. I was very
impressed and grateful and I know the other Tourists really appreciated the
gesture too! That t-shirt will return with me in 2008, for sure!
Well we sat down for dinner, resplendent in our
new t-shirts and as far as I was concerned, it turned out to be one of the best dinners I’ve
ever had at Le Grand Lucé. As is by now my habit, I started with my favourite
moules farcies, mussels cooked in oil and garlic and followed that with a duck
disk which was excellent. This was rounded off with some marvellous apple
tart. A great way to set me up for the night at Le Mans!
It wasn't all that long before the discussion turned to who was
going back to the circuit. Six of us wanted to go, so Ian drove myself and
Jonathan while Nick took the other two new boys, Brian and Jeremy. Once again,
I’ll take this opportunity to thank Ian for accommodating my needs here – I
appreciate that these days some of those on the Le Mans trips really don't want
to watch as much of the race as possible, particularly during the night hours like me, and I’m always grateful for the fact that
Ian is prepared to do this for me – and come and get me again in the morning!
Once into the cars, the six of us
headed for Mulsanne Corner and we got there earlier than I'd expected at about
11.10 pm after the long walk there from the car park. We watched for about
half an hour, the view aided by the new lights system on the cars indicating the
first three positions in each class, plus a new viewing screen where the old
signalling pits once stood. As always, I took a few speculative shots in no
light at all, with no flash and with debris fencing to contend with - so not
much of a challenge.......
Time was getting on though and Ian left Nick and
his two ‘crew’ to find their way back to Le Grand Lucé while he and Jonathan
kindly drove me back to the main entrance for my night time session……
Inevitably after the experience of both Friday
and Saturday, I was approaching this with a degree of trepidation. As
everyone knows by now, as far as I'm concerned, Le Mans at night just has
to be witnessed. I simply don't understand why anyone would travel to
another country to watch the greatest motor race of them all and then sleep
through the best part - you've got another 364 nights you can sleep through for
goodness sake! Having said this, although I hadn’t
watched or heard any more weather forecasts, I knew I would need a lot of good
luck to get
through the night without more rain. But I did have my seat in the
pits grandstand, plus another I had picked up at the last minute for the Dunlop
stand, so at least I knew I had places to go to get a little shelter (although
the rain near the start of the race had demonstrated that the grandstands actually
provide relatively little protection from heavy, swirling rain!
As a couple of the Ten Tenthers had suggested
they might pop in and see me in T34 during the night, I thought that would be
the best place to start. So, with tripod in hand as usual, I made my way back
there over the Dunlop Bridge and down through the now sanitised Village, buying
a bottle of water on the way. Having had quite a bit of experience now taking
pictures during the night from this stand, I took up station straight away at
the point nearest the pit entry for shots of the cars coming in for
the pit stops. It was now 12.30 a.m.
I moved around the stand, not wanting to leave
as I didn’t want to miss anyone popping in, but I did want to get elsewhere
during the night this year, as I was conscious that in the last couple of years
I had spent far too much time just sitting in the pits grandstand.
So at about
1.15 a.m. I quit my seat (or seats as by now I could sit pretty much where I
liked!) and, after taking some shots of the ferris wheel over
at Maison Blanche, I left the grandstand headed towards the Dunlop Curve.
As an
aside, it’s interesting to check the times of these various things – which I can
do thanks to the times automatically recorded on my digital photographs. I know, for
example, that it must have been a long walk to the Dunlop stand, as I didn’t
take my first picture there until 2.17 a.m.! (And yes, I am allowing for the
one hour time difference in my calculations!).
This was the first time I had sat in this stand
since 1990 and it still affords a great view of the chicane. The first thing
that struck me was just how much the corner has actually changed in the last 17
years! As I didn’t intend to spend a great deal of time there, I took quite a
lot of photographs using my borrowed Speedlite, having absolutely no idea how
they would turn out. As it happens, I was quite pleased with the result. Not
spectacular, but not so bad for an amateur.
But by now, my
curiosity was getting the better of me - I just had to go down to Tertre Rouge
to see the revisions to the circuit for the first time......
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