By the time we settled down to sleep, with the adjustment to French time, we had the prospect of something less than four hours kip - as always, a brilliant preparation for a weekend at Le Mans...At least we had one more night before the race itself. The ferry's alarm went off at about 6 am and we had just about enough time for a quick wash and brush up and a cup of coffee in the restaurant before it was time to re-pack our bags and head down to the cars. Soon we were off the boat and over the two bridges towards Honfleur for a breakfast stop.
We arrived in Honfleur about 8 am to find nothing much open. We had a look around the various bars and cafes but it didn't take long to decide that we would take our breakfast again at the Bar La Bisquine. Unlike last year however, it was a rather grey and misty morning (as you can see from the shots of the bridge) instead of the very bright and sunny morning that greeted us on our arrival in France in 1999. Whatever the weather though, we were in France and the weekend was now well and truly under way. We had to wait until 8.30 for our orders to be taken so we continued our walk around Honfleur. There were choices to be made about breakfast, the Bar La Bisquine still offering their 'Formula' breakfasts and the main decision was whether or not to have eggs! After an excellent breakfast and some fantastic coffee and croissants it was time to think about the journey on to Le Mans. Our plan for the day was much the same as last year, the intention being to reach the circuit around lunchtime.
So after Chris had checked the route with Ian it was time to head back to the cars. Left left Honfleur at about 9.30. Our journey took us by the familiar route through Bernay, Broglie, St Evroult de Montfort, Nonant le Pin, Sées, Alençon and Fyé. Having made pretty good time we didn't take much persuading to take a pastis break in Fyé.
Although the weather looks dull in the photos it was actually quite warm. After driving for the best part of two hours the pastis was very welcome. We had now broken the back of the journey which would take us on to Juillé, Beaumont sur Sarthe, St. Jeanne D'Assé and St. Saturnin. I was already thinking of last year's pitwalk and itching to give it another go!
We made it into the Garage Rouge at the circuit by about 12.40 pm. We managed to persuade the marshals on the gate to let us in even though we didn't have a car park ticket yet. As we parked up, extraordinarily, the other two remaining Tourists pulled into the car park behind us. Robert and Jeff had made the journey in a hire car following their own rendezvous in Paris earlier in the day. Bearing in mind that we had stopped on route (twice!) and were quite a bit later arriving than Ian had envisaged, it was incredible luck that Robert and Jeff should meet up with us literally a couple of minutes after our arrival in the car park. Perfect timing! The weather had vastly improved and it was time to het hats and caps out to deal with the sunshine. So having sorted out our headgear as well as camera bags and everything else it was time to head into the circuit. As always, it was a strange feeling to be entering the Circuit des 24 Heures on Friday, with the car parks virtually empty and very few people wandering around.
We were soon into the circuit and wandering around the Village, the shopping area on the inside of the circuit, just down from the Dunlop Bridge. There were as always a collection of trade stands, one of the biggest being that of Panoz, the American team having it's largest representation at Le Mans this year with five cars. After looking around some of the stands we moved on down towards the pits. The Goodyear airship was much in evidence again this year. We walked up into the back of the pits grandstand overlooking the paddock, looking at all of the spare 'noses' for the three Oreca Vipers and the setup for both Cadillac and Corvette, with Panoz providing a strong US flavour to the race this year. By now I had descended from the back of the stand and was waiting fairly impatiently to get my chance in the pitlane.
