Le Mans 2008
The Tourists' Story
Friday - A Beer and a Walkabout!
We left Benouville a few minutes after nine o'clock and were soon pressing on towards Le Mans. After stopping on the outskirts for some more petrol for Jeremy's thirsty Aston – and to admire Alan’s sparkling new white trainers! - we were soon heading along those familiar roads towards the garage rouge.
We finally arrived in the garage rouge at 11.30 and went through our standard preparation routines. For me, that's just checking on the camera gear! For others, it was a change of shoes and finding the hat from last year.... As you'll see from the photos, there were no coats being readied. It was quite bright and sunny although little need for sun cream at this stage.
Having got everything we needed for the moment, it was off to buy tickets and into the circuit.
There's something rather special about that first beer back at Le Mans after a year away.....
But time was marching on and with it, the time that Allon and I wanted to spend in the pitlane. So we finished our beers and agreed a rendezvous back at the cars at 4 p.m. in the garage rouge. I was just hoping I wouldn't end up as wet waiting in the garage rouge as I had last year! Actually, we had plenty of time because we were lucky enough to have an invite to the Embassy Zytek pit at 2:15 p.m. to look forward to, courtesy of team owner Jonathan France and Ten-Tenths member James, aka Bentley 03.
On route to the pits, Allon and I visited the new 'Welcome' building, an imposing looking structure, built roughly on the site of the previous much-loved building, from which I had taken many photos over the years. The view was nearly as good......
There was nothing actually happening at this time, so I dragged Allon away from the model stalls (!) and we were soon off down to the pitlane to join the throng with camera at the ready......
Once upon a time, when making the pitwalk on Friday lunchtime, I'd intended to try and get a photo of every car - those days are long since past......
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