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Le Mans 1998 - The Tourists' Story

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What more could you ask for? Good food, a few beers and good company. And all accompanied by the dulcet tones of Messrs. Truswell and Titchmarsh at Radio Le Mans. Brilliant!

So by midnight, our meal was finished and we were feeling much refreshed.  But what was happening in the race?  Well, the two works Porsches were holding court at the front, two laps ahead of the Nielsen R390.  Toyota's challenge had crumbled, the cars afflicted (as Toyotas always seem to be) by dodgy gearboxes.  The Boutsen car was the only one of the three still in contention, but 4 laps down in 7th place.  Pierre and I were both disappointed as we shared the desire to see Toyota win against Porsche (perhaps to make up for the lost victory in 1994, when the "imposter" Dauer Porsche robbed the Japanese team).

I guess this is just about my favourite view at Le Mans. (Which is why I take about a dozen pictures of it every year!)            Some light trails down at the Esses. Who's going to bet against there being a Ferrari 333SP amongst the cars that passed in front of my lens for this shot?!

Perhaps inevitably, I was keen to get back up on my roof for some more light trail shots.  The fact that they might end up looking exactly like the light trail shots I took from there last year was entirely immaterial!  We spent over an hour up there before taking coffee in the Welcome bar.  Then, all of a sudden, and it seemed without any warning at all - it rained!  Fortunately, we were under cover, now listening intently as always to Radio Le Mans, to see how the cars were coping with the sudden downpour.  The shower lasted about 45 minutes and, having given it another 10 minutes to be reasonably sure, Pierre and I headed out of the Welcome area, stopping off at the Dunlop Curve and the Esses, before heading back again to the Village for breakfast at the Grand Marnier crepe stall!

Pit stop for the 8 Joest Porsche of Pierre-Henri Raphanel, James Weaver and David Murry. Murry shunted the car about 4.45 am and it was retired less than an hour later.            Another night pit stop, this time for the 30 Missan of Franck Lagorce, John Nielsen and Michael Krumm. The car was running around 5th place at this time.

We decided to spend the last hour or so before dawn on the tribunes, where I set up my tripod to catch some of the action in the pits.  On the way there, I had bought a large aerial photograph taken on Saturday from the Goodyear balloon of the grid just before the off.  I'd intended to hang it on the wall of my new office when I was promoted in October.  Unfortunately, I didn't get the job (and the less said about that the better - it cost me about £13k!), so it's now in my study.

Recognise this? If you found me via Club Arnage you should! Perhaps my most well-known photo, which formed part of my original site logo when I started up last year. As you might imagine, it's one of my favourite shots.            Same car, same theme, but a bit closer and a slightly longer exposure. Certainly shows off those glowing brake discs, doesn't it!

As dawn soon arrived, I moved up to the start of the straight and took some slow panned shots as the cars exited the Ford Chicane.  One of those shots can be seen above - perhaps my favourite shot in all my years at Le Mans.  Of course, the race then took an unexpected twist, with both of the works Porsches hitting problems, overheating for McNish and a trip through the gravel trap for the other car.  It meant that both cars lost about half an hour in the pits, thereby allowing the Boutsen Toyota into a 4-lap lead!  As you can imagine, Pierre and I were absolutely delighted - a bit of good luck for Toyota for a change!

This car, the 13 Courage-Nissan of Didier Cottaz, Marc Goossens and Jean-Philippe Belloc was living on borrowed time when I took this shot. It retired with gearbox failure at 7.47 am.            Henri Pescarolo's 15 La Filiere Courage (shared with Olivier Grouillard and Franck Montagny) wasn't faring that much better, having lost an hour and a half in the pits around 1.00 am with a (long!) gearbox change.            A little touch of contre jour! The light was just right for this shot of the cars going through the Dunlop Chicane. The Toyota flame-out was a bonus!

Pierre and I set off on our travels again, making our way right down to Tertre Rouge, stopping off here and there for plenty more pictures.  By about 8.30, we were feeling pretty weary, plus thirsty and hungry, so we stopped off at the bar at the top of the hill at the Esses and took in ham and emmental baguettes and some good strong coffee.  We both knew we couldn't afford to sit down for too long (otherwise we'd be falling asleep!), so we headed back the way we came, listening intently to Radio Le Mans again, having heard the news that the lead Toyota was having more gearbox bothers, enabling the Porsches to home in on it.  As a fully paid-up member of the Le Mans "All Night" club, I wasn't feeling so bad, but I knew that Pierre was feeling the pace a little!  So we really took our time on the journey back to the garages.

Here's a shot of the 26 Porsche, driven by Allan McNish, sharing with Laurent Aiello and Stephane Ortelli. McNish was pushing hard to make up for a 35 minute pit stop which dropped him 3 laps behind the 29 Toyota.        Still relatively early in the morning as the 24 Courage and the 32 Nissan exit the Esses, headlights still blazing.        I guess I included this shot as a reminder for us of the original view here on the run down to the Esses, which is set to change dramatically for the 2001 race.

We walked all the way back to the MRI marquee (at the Ford Chicane) for a cold drink (a civilised pee) and even sat down to watch a bit of the race on TV!  Somehow, that didn't seem terribly exciting so we headed out of the MRI "back door" and settled down on the banking just before the chicane to watch the last hour or so of the race from there (remembering of course that the race had started 2 hours earlier in '98, so finished at 2 pm).

Any excuse to post a picture of a GT-One! Without a doubt my favourite Le Mans car since I drooled over another Toyota, the TS010 in '92 and '93.            We've now jumped a fair bit, time-wise, in fact, it's down to the last few laps as the 33 Nissan loses it's engine cover. Kageyama had brought the car in at 1.41 pm to change the rear bodywork and it seemed the mechanics didn't make a good job of fixing it, as it came off on the next lap! (Remember, the race started at 2 pm in 1998!).

It was while we were there that we heard that the 29 Toyota had stopped with gearbox failure, leaving the two Porsches home free.  We were gutted!  (As I guess all of the Toyota team were.  I just hope that if Toyota ever come back to Le Mans again in the future, they get themselves some decent gearboxes!!). 

And yes, the race is over for another year. This is, without question, the moment I hate at Le Mans as I know that I've got a whole year to go before I can have another fix!

We now had the long trudge back to the garage bleu to our coach and I was dead to the world in the land of nod even before the coach left the circuit.  I didn't wake again until 5.30 pm when we stopped for a bite to eat at Evreux.  Once on the boat at Le Havre, we met up with John and Fergus (whoops, haven't mentioned them before, have I?!), who we shared a cabin with both on the way and on the way back.  

It was about this time that we discovered that there was a Le Mans video game in the arcade on the boat, so we all headed down for a few laps, during which time we demonstrated why Allan McNish had won Le Mans this year and not one of us!  

We got 2 or 3 hours of shut-eye before it was time to get up again and get ready to go down and find our coach.  Before long, Pierre and I were on our way back to Southampton to pick up my car.  

So that's the story of the "Terrible Twosome" at Le Mans in 1998.  We had a fine time - exhausting - but a lot of fun.  Yes, it was a shame that the rest of the Tourists couldn't be with us, but we still enjoyed ourselves.  I wouldn't have missed it for the world.  Roll on 1999!