Le Mans 2007
The Tourists' Story
The Wonderful Night - Part 1
Once back to the very familiar surroundings of the Hotel Restaurant Le Cheval Blanc, it was time for a wash and brush up before dinner. In fact, there was also time for another surprise – Madame suddenly produced a set of blue (appropriately Gulf blue, as it happens!) t-shirts for all of us! Back in 2002 I'd kitted out all of the Tourists with Aysedasi’s Le Mans t-shirts and even provided one for Madame, but never expected to be presented with a t-shirt from Le Cheval Blanc. I was very impressed and grateful and I know the other Tourists really appreciated the gesture too! That t-shirt will return with me in 2008, for sure!
Well we sat down for dinner, resplendent in our new t-shirts and as far as I was concerned, it turned out to be one of the best dinners I’ve ever had at Le Grand Lucé. As is by now my habit, I started with my favourite moules farcies, mussels cooked in oil and garlic and followed that with a duck disk which was excellent. This was rounded off with some marvellous apple tart. A great way to set me up for the night at Le Mans!
It wasn't all that long before the discussion turned to who was going back to the circuit. Six of us wanted to go, so Ian drove myself and Jonathan while Nick took the other two new boys, Brian and Jeremy. Once again, I’ll take this opportunity to thank Ian for accommodating my needs here – I appreciate that these days some of those on the Le Mans trips really don't want to watch as much of the race as possible, particularly during the night hours like me, and I’m always grateful for the fact that Ian is prepared to do this for me – and come and get me again in the morning!
Time was getting on though and Ian left Nick and his two ‘crew’ to find their way back to Le Grand Lucé while he and Jonathan kindly drove me back to the main entrance for my night time session……
Inevitably after the experience of both Friday and Saturday, I was approaching this with a degree of trepidation. As everyone knows by now, as far as I'm concerned, Le Mans at night just has to be witnessed. I simply don't understand why anyone would travel to another country to watch the greatest motor race of them all and then sleep through the best part - you've got another 364 nights you can sleep through for goodness sake! Having said this, although I hadn’t watched or heard any more weather forecasts, I knew I would need a lot of good luck to get through the night without more rain. But I did have my seat in the pits grandstand, plus another I had picked up at the last minute for the Dunlop stand, so at least I knew I had places to go to get a little shelter (although the rain near the start of the race had demonstrated that the grandstands actually provide relatively little protection from heavy, swirling rain!
As a couple of the Ten Tenthers had suggested they might pop in and see me in T34 during the night, I thought that would be the best place to start. So, with tripod in hand as usual, I made my way back there over the Dunlop Bridge and down through the now sanitised Village, buying a bottle of water on the way. Having had quite a bit of experience now taking pictures during the night from this stand, I took up station straight away at the point nearest the pit entry for shots of the cars coming in for the pit stops. It was now 12.30 a.m.
I moved around the stand, not wanting to leave as I didn’t want to miss anyone popping in, but I did want to get elsewhere during the night this year, as I was conscious that in the last couple of years I had spent far too much time just sitting in the pits grandstand.
So at about 1.15 a.m. I quit my seat (or seats as by now I could sit pretty much where I liked!) and, after taking some shots of the ferris wheel over at Maison Blanche, I left the grandstand headed towards the Dunlop Curve.
As an aside, it’s interesting to check the times of these various things – which I can do thanks to the times automatically recorded on my digital photographs. I know, for example, that it must have been a long walk to the Dunlop stand, as I didn’t take my first picture there until 2.17 a.m.! (And yes, I am allowing for the one hour time difference in my calculations!).
This was the first time I had sat in this stand since 1990 and it still affords a great view of the chicane. The first thing that struck me was just how much the corner has actually changed in the last 17 years! As I didn’t intend to spend a great deal of time there, I took quite a lot of photographs using my borrowed Speedlite, having absolutely no idea how they would turn out. As it happens, I was quite pleased with the result. Not spectacular, but not so bad for an amateur.
But by now, my curiosity was getting the better of me - I just had to go down to Tertre Rouge to see the revisions to the circuit for the first time......
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