Le Mans 2007
The Tourists' Story
More Rain and the End of the Weekend
Back at Le Grand Lucé, a splash of water on my face and croissants, French bread, jam and masses of coffee had the desired effect and I joined the rest of the Tourists (some of whom had contrived to miss something like 14 hours of the race so far……
), in the back yard for the team photographs, which had a special significance this year as we all again donned our Le Cheval Blanc t-shirts!
After saying our farewells to Madame and her staff we set off about 9.30 a.m. from Le Grand Lucé on our now standard run out to Indianapolis and Arnage. We were lucky enough to get all the cars into the first overflow car park there (lucky of course, as John had no garage ticket for his car!), and the weather was still reasonable as we made our way up onto the spectator banking. We were greeted by another new TV screen there – just as well, as the view there is now so poor…..
I took one or two shots here, but to be frank, I've only included them for the sake of completeness. These days there is little point taking photographs at Arnage and Indianapolis as there is no way past the debris fencing unless you have a stepladder - and no, I'm taking one of those next year!
But Arnage does have the great advantage of some of the better food and drink anywhere on the circuit and before long the lure of cider, omelettes and merguez proved too much and we adjourned to the eaterie for an early lunch. And so it was that I sat there in that seat for what seemed like hours, quite unable to summon up the energy to go back out again.
But it was as well that we had chosen this spot and grabbed those seats…. Earlier in the morning I had told the others that the forecast said that it was just a matter of time before the rains came again and this time, expect a real downpour. And so it came, within minutes all but the most diehard had left the banking for cover as it rained torrentially – so hard that it even began seeping through the tarpaulins over the seating area at the eaterie.
Any thought we may have previously had of heading back to the garages went out of the window as the rain continued to pour down and the race continued until near the end under the safety car. Which I suspect was relief for one or two of the Tourists! But a shame that one of the more entertaining Le Mans races in recent years should end as a bit of a damp squib…..
We headed back to the cars and made our somewhat damp journey away from the circuit for another year. As usual, the journey was no more than a matter of moments for me in Martyn’s car, as I slept like a baby all the way to the Hotel Continental at Cancale. We were the first to arrive there and Jim and I grabbed a room while Alan dealt with the rest of the allocations. After struggling with the controls for 10 minutes, I finally got the shower working and slowly brought myself back to some semblance of life before joining some of the others in a pastis in one of the local bars.
).
The St. Jacques (scallops) which followed – in an excellent asparagus risotto were also excellent. As the meal drew to a close and the thoughts of some (who had had more sleep the night before than me!) turned to going out on the town, I headed off to bed and some badly needed sleep.
As you might imagine, little disturbed me that night and we slept well into the morning before getting up and indulging in a very good, leisurely breakfast. We left charming Cancale in good weather at about 9.45 to make the journey on to Port en Bessin – you see, we already had our next meal planned well in advance!
Again, long-standing readers will know that we had stayed on the Sunday night at Port en Bessin in both 1995 and 1996 and as we arrived there just after midday, we made a beeline again to the Hotel De La Marine - http://www.hoteldelamarine.pretexx.fr/en/hotel.html - where we managed to book ourselves in for lunch. The soupe de poisson was very good as was the fish dish which followed, although my third apple tart of the weekend was actually quite poor compared to that which Madame served us at Le Cheval Blanc on Saturday night!
The meal over, there was no real time for sight-seeing. Some were keen to get to the hypermarket but Martyn was a bit more concerned by the fact that he could no longer find his ferry ticket. So we decided it would be more prudent to get to the ferry terminal at Caen to sort this out instead of going shopping! We left Port en Bessin somewhere around 2.45, I guess, and with a sailing at 4.30 p.m. French time, we knew we had to make tracks to the terminal. In fact, when we got there, the loss of the tickets was no problem at all as the booking was on their computer system, but the fact that we had four people in the car was – the ticket (of course – remember Portsmouth on Thursday night?) was for three….
But they let us through, intending that we should wait for the other cars and make the same adjustment as we had on Thursday, but in the end, we couldn’t be bothered to wait any longer and sneaked on board anyway….
And so the 2007 Tourists trip to Le Mans came to a close. I’ll say no more about the ferry journey back to Portsmouth than I usually do……
And so to conclusions: I think I can say quite honestly that this was one of the best trips of the 22 I’ve been lucky enough to experience. The company was splendid, as always. It was good to have some old faces back with us after a few years away and to meet new acquaintances, some of whom I have little doubt are likely to join us again. The highs? Experiencing the whole of the Friday evening driver parade for the first time - a great Ten Tenths meeting – so much great food (!) and generally excellent company. The lows? Very few indeed – just the weather really and that only spoiled things when I was drowned on Friday and when the race was badly affected in the last couple of hours.
Once again, my thanks are due in the main to Ian, our Chief Tourist for brilliantly organising the whole event again. Now we can look forward to Le Mans 2008…….
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