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As far as I was concerned, my plan was to be up
bright and early on Saturday morning in the hope of persuading the others that
we needed to be at the circuit in good time for the Legends race and of course
for the
Ten Tenths
meeting scheduled for 11:30 at 'Pascal's Pin'.
Some of the other Tourists however had different ideas....
There was clearly a marked reluctance on the part
of some to leave Le Grand Lucé early to go to the circuit. I was quite
surprised as this had never really been an issue before, and
particularly bearing in mind that the race itself was an hour earlier starting this year, at three o'clock. So we actually had less time to
kill before the race than usual! But there was no persuading some of the
Tourists and so it was decided that one car would head off to the circuit
leaving the others to catch up later. Ian drove, taking myself, Robert and
Jonathan.
We actually left for the circuit at 10:20, which
I didn't think was particularly early at all bearing in mind that for the last couple of
years we were already at the circuit by that time. But we did make very good
time and got to the circuit about halfway through the Legends race. So I did
manage to see the glorious P3 Ferrari after all!
The time soon ran away towards
the 11:30 scheduled time for the Ten Tenths meeting, and I left Ian, Robert and
Jonathan in the knowledge that we would be meeting again at the Shell stand
ready to return to Le Grand Lucé later in the day.
I hurried off into the (new sanitised) Village to locate
the tree which we had earlier selected on the forum for our meeting place.
Those who frequent the forum, and our Le Mans conversations there, will probably
be aware that the meeting place had received the description 'Pascal's Pin'.
This was because of the way that Pascal had described the place we were to meet
at on a picture showing a yellow pin. I reached what I thought was 'the' tree, but
couldn't see any of the other 10 tenths members. It was one of those rather
strange moments, as all of a sudden I became aware of several people who I had
met before appearing out of nowhere..... I confess I can't remember all of the names however a number of
regulars were there, including Pascal, Bernard, Rob, James, Craig, Sam, Suze,
Kdr, Ker and Paul, who was there all the way from Canada. It was in fact Paul
who had brought with him a poster of 'Pascal's Pin' to affix to the tree!
The annual Ten Tenths meetings had been started
several years before by my good friend Fabrice Chaplin otherwise known as
'Fab', who for several years was a co-moderator with me on the Sportscar Forum.
Sadly Fab was not at Le Mans this year, having also missed 2006. So, with Pascal and Bernard providing the excellent wine, we toasted Fab together with
another missing Ten Tenths friend, Allon FS who had unfortunately had to miss this
year's race, due to poor health. Can we find a way of
getting them both back to Le Mans in 2008.......?
There was a lot to chat about and a whole load of
pictures to be taken, but, typically, as we decided we ought to take some team
photographs, it started to rain!
By this time it was past 1 pm and many were quite
keen to take up their places in the grandstands ready for the
driver parade. Having taken the team pics and said our farewells, people
started to drift away and I thought I’d have a quick look at the shots we had
just taken. To my horror I realised that the team photographs taken on my
camera by myself and Bernard were hopelessly under exposed - the dial on my
camera must have moved accidentally to full manual without my realising it.
Hence the photograph that you see of the group of Ten Tenthers on this page is
the best I've been able to do with what I had left.
And so it was that we left the ‘pin’ and went our
separate ways. For most of us, it was a place in one or other of the
grandstands that we were heading towards. For me, that meant a place in T34,
otherwise known as the pits grandstand. This was my fifth consecutive year in
this grandstand having been introduced to it by my good friend Fab, who had
kindly bought my ticket there in the years between 2003 and 2005, it was such a
shame he couldn't join us there this year.
Bearing in mind the time, I was hoping to pick up
something to eat before heading into the grandstand, however I just couldn't
find anywhere between our meeting place and the grandstand to buy any
food at all. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind mind that since the ACO flattened the old Village
and replaced it with a Formula One style shopping area, the places to buy food at Le
Mans have greatly deteriorated. Of course, this wasn't helped when the ACO
decided to franchise the eateries some years ago. In the end, rather than
traipsing all the way back to just below the Dunlop Curve, where I knew there
was somewhere selling baguettes, I decided to take up my seat in the stand and
get something to eat and drink later.
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