Aysedasi's Le Mans Story - 2000

Le Mans 2000 - Ayse's Story

Page 4 - Friday 16th June - The Pitwalk and my First Drive on the Circuit

I finally got my wish and we headed into the pitlane and I set about getting as many shots of the cars (or bits of them!) as I could. It was now about 2 pm and we had agreed to set aside an hour for this purpose. One unusual stat I picked up later was that there were only five British drivers taking part, which I'm guessing was an all time low.

I even managed to get a couple of quick shots of the great Mario Andretti in the pits. Still striving for that elusive Le Mans win, Mario was now 60 years old and the oldest driver in the race.

A the end of our pitwalk I met up with the others and we had a chance to go up on the pitwall and take a look at the track. It was quite eerie in near silence with empty grandstands and tribunes in front of them. In 24 hours time the grid, the track, the grandstands and the tribunes would be packed with people all as keen as I was for their annual 'fix' of the world's greatest motor race. The pitlane remained crowded of course with some pits more crowded than others. Everyone wanted to get a look at the Audis while I could have probably sat in the WR pit without anyone noticing... The hour in the pitlane was now at an and and a great hour it was too. Ian, Martyn, Robert, Peter and myself were still there but the 'Jeep crew' had disappeared, no doubt for refreshments. So we made our way out of the pits into the paddock at the back. The weather was terrific and we were hoping for more of the same for the weekend. We couldn't find the others so we headed back to the cars in the Garage Rouge, but not before we made a stop for a cold beer. It's worthy of note that the beer was non-alcoholic as for some reason the bars weren't allowed to sell alcohol at this time of the day - bizarre! While I had the chance I disappeared over the the ACO office to try and get my member pack. I git the programme but the Liste des Engagées wasn't available yet.

As there was still no sign of the others, we decided to head off for our Friday evening stop at Fontevraud L'Abbeye. It was at the start of this journey that I experienced a Le Mans 'first' - a drive down the Mulsanne Straight! Even though this was my fifteenth Le Mans, this was something I hadn't done before. I had to record it on film for posterity!