Aysedasi's Le Mans

We were soon on that familiar stretch of road to Portsmouth and before long we were admiring the superb machinery parked in the ferry terminal waiting for the ferry. Bentleys, Jaguars, Lotus, all the usual cars were there.

The fastcraft to Cherbourg was marvellous, getting us to France in about two and a half hours and we were soon on the road for the short distance to our overnight stop at the Hotel de France in Isigny-sur-Mer. By sheer coincidence, this was the same hotel as I stayed in when I went over for the Le Mans Classic last September.

We did however, have a minor mishap as we were approaching Isigny - we ran out of fuel! We'd been putting off stopping and Robert was sure we had enough fuel as the low-fuel light hadn't come on - unfortunately, it seemed that our bus didn't have one! We were lucky that we came to a halt only 200 yards or so from a petrol station and we pushed the bus there without any problem. The next problem was that the unmanned petrol station wouldn't take any of our plastic! A nice French miss came to our rescue using her card for which we exchanged the cash.After a few anxious moments when the bus refused to start again, we finally made it to the Hotel de France! A good meal was followed by a wander up the road for a drink or two and, several calvados later, we got to bed at about 1.00 a.m.

We had a fair journey to the circuit ahead of us on Friday so it was all up for an early breakfast and then back on the road again.

Leaving the running out of petrol aside, it was on this journey that we suffered our worst setback of the weekend. On the run from Isigny to Le Mans, we decided to stop for a coffee and chose a typical small roadside bar at

Montrée, called the Bar L'Etrier. Remember the name well. We had our coffee and were about 10 minutes down the road when Martyn realised he didn't have his bumbag...... which contained all his Euros, Sterling, passport and credit cards. We went back and Martyn re-appeared from the bar with the bag. Sighs of relief all round, from Martyn in particular.

Thinking all was OK, we set off again, but a couple of minutes later, having checked the contents of the bag, Martyn realised that ALL of his cash, in both euros and sterling was missing. About £300-worth, if I recall correctly. Not surprisingly we returned to the bar again, and the staff denied all knowledge of the missing cash. Funny that. Funny how an opportunist thief would have had the chance to rifle through the bumbag, find the cash (which was in a separate wallet inside) and then make off with it leaving the bag behind - all under the noses of the staff? Well, we'll leave you to draw your own conclusions - perhaps they'll be similar to ours..... Whatever, it left a very sour taste in the mouth and meant that Martyn's Le Mans trip was going to be significantly more expensive than he'd thought.

Our journey having been delayed somewhat, with nothing else we could do, we pressed on to the circuit. Having managed to get into the garage rouge (having assured the garage marshalls that we didn't intend to set up a (semi) permanent camp there for the weekend, we made our way into the circuit and were soon basking in the sunshine in the pitlane.

I only had an hour to dash up and down the pitlane (trying to get at least one shot into every pit garage), before rejoining the Tourists who would by that time no doubt be thinking of their stomachs......

The walkabout is, for me, one of the Le Mans essentials. I'd love to be able to do it on race day itself, but I'm far too stingy to pay the whopping price for a ticket to join the pretty people (and the Hawaiian Tropic girls.....!).

By this time, my French pal Fabrice ("Fab" from the forum) had sent me several text messages to say he was nearby in the pitlane and I was on the lookout for him.

Before long, I had managed my goal of a picture in every garage and with only 10 minutes or so before my scheduled rendezvous with the rest of the Tourists, I was keen to find Fabrice. And there he was, still wearing the now infamous self-destructing Aysedasi's Le Mans t-shirt from 2002. (I do hope you changed out of it some time between Le Mans 2002 and Le Mans 2003 Fab?!).

Fab and I then left the pits to track down the other Tourists. Paul had come to find me in fact, as, surprise, surprise, they'd all adjourned to a nearby bar for a beer and some frites! After introducing Fab to the team, he departed, telling me that he was going home to cool down in his pool (lucky wotsit!).

Back in 2001, Stoffer (who was unable to come to Le Mans this year due to a wedding commitment), and I tried in vain to locate the cars which would be running in the Legends race on Saturday morning. This year, however, the team was successful. I was slightly disappointed with the turn-out of cars, I must admit, but I suspect that's because I was spoiled by the Classic event the previous September.

I was actually on the look-out for the yellow Zapata Ligier which Willie Green was to drive again (having driven it with Nicolas Zapata (the car's owner) at the Classic). I soon found it and after chatting with the mechanics, confirmed that Willie would be driving it solo in the Legends race.

And lo and behold, who appeared on the scene at just that moment - Mr. Green himself.

Having taken in the sites and sounds of the Legends paddock it was back to the bus for our journey to Le Grand Lucé, where we would once again be staying at the Hotel Restaurant Le Cheval Blanc. In fact, we did a lengthy detour into Le Mans town to try and report Martyn's theft from earlier in the day, but after waiting at the police station for over an hour without being seen by anyone, Martyn realised that unless we hit the road we would miss our evening meal.

I've now lost count of how many times over the years since we first went there in 1990 that we have eaten at Le Belinois at Moncé-en-Belin but it must be close to a dozen times. This year I was particularly looking forward to the evening, as the Tourists had a special guest joining them. I had met Paul Truswel, who most of you should know as one of the Radio Le Mans commentators (since 1988, I should add), back in 2001, but we contrived to miss each other at last year's race. This year however, we arranged that Paul would take dinner with the Tourists.

Needless to say, we had a good meal and I picked up a lot of information from Paul about the race and Radio Le Mans (in confidence, of course!).

After our meal it was back to Le Cheval Blanc for some sleep, ready for race day. (That didn't stop some of the Tourists seeking out a local bar which was still open for a nightcap!).

We knew we needed to be up bright and early on Saturday as we were all (well, most of us, anyway!), keen to see the Legends race which started at 10.00 a.m. We managed to find ourselves a good spot on the tribunes opposite the pits, from where we could not only get a good look at the cars as they lined up opposite, but also a good look at the sky which was clearly promising some rain.

We were treated to a very good race, particularly between Willie's Ligier and the beautiful Nick Mason Ferrari driven by Mark Hales. Although it was a shame when the Ferrari retired, it did give Willie a nice easy run to his first win at Le Mans!

After the Legends race, anticipating rain, we moved across into the Village and, thinking ahead, managed to secure not only some beers, but a seat under cover in the hostelry just inside the Village (after the underpass).

I'd wanted to be around here as I was due to meet with Fab and the other members of the Ten-Tenths forum at 12 noon. Well, by the time 12 noon arrived, it was raining - hard enough to tempt me to stay where I was. But, eventually it eased and I went off in search of the forum members.

The meeting was great fun and the French and Spanish wine was flowing very nicely. I've already lost count of the names of some of those present, but they certainly included (as well as Fab and myself), Liz, Nordic, Javi, PascalLM, AllonFS, rdjones and Bernard B. (As and when I remember the names of the others, I'll add them in!).