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In a way it was a shame it wasn't a cold night,
as it was very, very hot in our cabin! We realised shortly after entering the
cabin that it was pretty warm in there, but there seem to be no way to make the
air conditioning any more effective. The result was that after an hour or so we
were all lying bathed in sweat as if in a sauna! I'm not so sure about the
others, Ian in particular, but I did manage to sleep even though I had to get up
at about six o'clock to have a cold shower to cool down! If I remember
rightly, I think Ian went to complain (or intended to) before we left the ferry
that morning. Despite the unpleasant heat in the cabin we were all up and about
good and early before the tannoy announcement that we would shortly be arriving
in St. Malo. Most of the tourists met in the restaurant for a cup of coffee
before we headed back to cars to disembark.
As we left the ferry, I sent a text message to
Jayne at home and looking back at that message I see that I sent it at 7:38,
English time, so it was nearly 8:40 French time when we set off on
our way. That had been one long crossing! Having initially
seen some sunshine through the windows of the ferry's restaurant, we were greeted by quite
heavy rain by the time we disembarked. It really was a dismal start to the day. However the three
cars grouped together in convoy and set off for Dinan for breakfast. We
had decided to follow the 2006 game plan even down to the car park we used in
Dinan. The only difference was that whereas last year was bright and sunny,
this year it was very wet. By this time the other Tourists had become used
to me indicating my firm belief that the weather definitely would improve and Jeremy and I
were routinely bantering about how it was "brightening up!".
We walked from the car park over to the same bar as we breakfasted in last year. Although it was impossible to eat outside
this year we managed to find tables inside and had a very enjoyable continental
breakfast, albeit one that was missing confiture, as the bar had run out! By
the time we finished our breakfast, the rain had eased substantially which meant
that we didn't get soaked walking back to the cars. Once back to them, I
distributed the garage rouge parking tickets ready for arrival at the circuit
later.
So it was time to head off for Le Mans even
though I sensed a degree of reluctance from some members of the group to get to
Le Mans too quickly. I was keen to get there of course, as there was a pits
walkabout to think about, plus the possibility of meeting up again with my Radio
Le Mans pal, Paul Truswell. But it was obvious - and it wouldn't be the only
time during the weekend - that my addiction with all things Le Mans wasn't
entirely shared by everyone else! Nevertheless, the three cars hit the road again
and we made some good progress (much of which I slept through in typical fashion), before
stopping for a beer at a bar aptly named “Le Cheval Blanc". Even though I was
keen to get the circuit, I have to say it was a very refreshing beer and it
didn't exactly take a great deal of time to consume it!
It didn't take long to reach the outskirts of Le
Mans and we soon started seeing those familiar red, green, blue and white signs
to the various garages (car parks). We arrived at the circuit at 1:30 and were soon
purchasing our entrance tickets which, for the first time, were electronically
scanned before we were admitted to the circuit. No doubt they would be
similarly scanned when we left - so was this finally the end of the contremarque?
As far as tickets were concerned this year, I
had obtained my tickets from Brian Sheehan at
www.1sttickets.co.uk
although they
were in part funded by Alan Peters at Club Valan (www.motorsport-tours.com),
who has been providing my website with a little sponsorship for quite a few
years now. I can heartily recommend both
1st Tickets
and
Club Valan
to all my readers!
As we walked into the circuit, it was obvious
how much rain had fallen, as there were large puddles here and there and the
normally very dusty orange sand at Le Mans was very damp. I knew it had
rained a lot as the second practice session on Thursday evening had been
virtually washed out - so the grid order would be determined by the Wednesday
sessions - but at least it wasn't raining - for the moment. We made our way
down into the new Village (for my money, it no longer really deserves that name,
the new sanitised shopping area that was built last year has none of the
atmosphere of the old Village and is yet another change that the Le Mans fan now
has to put up with), and paused a moment to make sure that everyone was there.
They weren't. Somehow in the space of just 5 or 10 minutes we had lost Brian.
There was a degree of concern as Brian hadn't been to Le Mans before, however we
felt certain that if he was in any doubt as to what he should do, he would make
his way back to the cars. The only potential problem was that we hadn't told
Brian what time we were meeting back at the cars before we lost him!
I knew I was likely
to have relatively little time in the pits and this proved to be the case when we
set 3:30 as the time to meet back at the cars. I guess by now it must have been
something like 2:15. Some of that time was needlessly wasted as we tried to
make our way into the pit lane only to find ourselves landlocked in the rather
stupid new entrance walkway to the pits grandstand. But there was good
news - as we walked into the pits, a gentleman with a large cool box spotted the
lanyards around our necks with
First Tickets
on them and immediately
proffered us a beer! Thank you Brian, they were very welcome!
Unfortunately, I found it impossible to make
contact with Paul Truswell, so I pressed on visiting the various pits. There
were a lot of people in the pit lane at this time and I didn't make any attempt
to try and take a picture in every pit as I once used to. But I got a few
good shots - I think. The pit lane is actually a smaller place than you'd
think, and most of the time I was there I was aware of where the other Tourists
were. There was still concern about Brian's whereabouts, and attempts had been
made to contact him on a mobile, however it seemed that he either had it
switched off or not with him at all!
So we decided to press on out of the pit lane
and head on back to the cars.
The walk back to the village seemed much longer
than it used to because of the way that the area behind the paddock has been
altered by the ACO. One advantage of that journey was that it took us past the
area in which the Legends cars were paddocked. Those lovely cars were taking part
in the race the following morning and I couldn't resist taking out a few minutes
of our time to whizz round that paddock and have a look at them. Ian and the
others pressed on while I got the camera ready.... I had taken precisely one
photograph when the rain started......
It was obvious this was going to be more than
just a shower and I quickly got out my pack a mac - just in the nick of time as
the rain absolutely poured down.
I put my camera away as it was obvious that
there was no chance now taking of photographs. But I had started walking back
towards the cars in the car park, a really stupid move as I was now in the open - I should have
stayed in the Legends paddock under cover. By the time I found a modicum of
shelter, the backs of my trousers were soaked. Then, as quickly as it had
arrived, the rain stopped. I couldn't see any point in hanging around, so I
walked back out of the Village, over the Dunlop Bridge, out of the circuit and
back to the cars where, lo and behold, I found Brian waiting. Contrary to some
of our expectations, Brian hadn't been worried at all. He'd had a good walk
around but had somehow not managed to bump into any of us!
So there we were, minding our own business,
chatting about Le Mans no doubt, and waiting for the others to return. They
were late by now, but we just assumed that they'd been held up sheltering from
the rain. And then the rain came back again, but the previous rain had been
little more than a light shower compared to this! It absolutely bucketed down,
to such an extent that Brian and I had to take shelter crouching down at one
side of the car. The rain was so hard that I was worried about it getting into
my camera bag, as it was certainly running down the back of my neck! It rained
like this for a good 10 to 15 minutes and by the time it finally eased off, I
was well and truly drenched. My T-shirt was soaked, my trousers sodden, and my
trademark white and blue hat would almost certainly have to be retired for the
remainder of the weekend.... It was sometime later that I wondered why on earth
I hadn't borrowed a spare car key just in case from Martyn!
To tell the truth I was a bit concerned because
I knew the plan was to drive straight on into Le Mans town to get a good spot
from which to watch the driver’s parade. Right now I really felt like going
back to Le Grand Lucé to dry off and change. But there was to be none of that!
By the time the others arrived there seemed to be some (surprising) urgency to
getting into town to watch the parade before going off to eat. So I grabbed
another shirt and another pair of trousers from my bag in the boot and changed
there and then in the back of Martyn's car. It's surprising how a change of
clothes - even a partial one - can make you feel more human again!
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