Aysedasi's Le Mans

Le Mans 2008

The Tourists' Story

Friday Evening - The Driver Parade

In 2006 we ate in the centre of the old Le Mans town for the first time, managing to catch the very tail-end of the driver parade. Last year we went a step further and came into town to see the entire parade for the first time, after which we again took dinner in a restaurant in the square opposite the Hotel de Ville. Ian had been sufficiently impressed by the location and the fare on offer that he had booked us in again at Le Fontainebleau.

So we headed off to the town knowing that our biggest problem would be to find parking for five cars this year, with parking spaces being at such a premium on Friday evening when the town centre is absolutely packed prior to the start of the parade, the local population swollen by thousands of race fans eager to catch a glimpse and maybe even an autograph of their heroes. John, Mark, Allon and I were extremely lucky as a car pulled out of a car park right in front of us. Ian also found a spot just up the road and eventually Nick bagged a place, squeezing his BMW into a nearby spot. We waited a while for Martyn and Jeremy and I called him just before 5 pm, but in the end we just assumed they had managed to get parked somewhere and we would catch up with them later.

So the occupants of the three successfully parked cars wandered off down the road, the obvious objective being to find ourselves a suitable spot from which to watch the parade, however, almost without realising it, we found ourselves alongside what was clearly the ‘collecting area’ for the vintage cars that would carry the drivers on their trip around the town. As the drivers began to arrive, we were able to photograph the early birds, such a Yojiro Terada, making his 29^thrace start and David Brabham who was looking to repeat his GT1 success with Aston Martin in the DBR9.

As the clock ticked on towards the formal start of the parade at 6 pm, drivers started to arrive from all directions including the entire Audi crew walking across the road behind me. But the funniest moment for me was when Stefan Johansson walked across the road with one of his team mates. I heard him say very clearly. ‘I wonder what pile of crap they’ll put us in this year?!’

As the others wandered off to try and find a vantage-point for the parade, I could see it was pretty pointless as the crowds were already 5 or 6 deep and all the best spots from which to watch and tale photographs were already long gone. So I decided to hang around the area in which the drivers continued to congregate. In fact, the parade seemed very slow to get under way, giving me that much extra time to pick out some well-known faces. So I had a very enjoyable time snapping away, taking dozens of photographs, the best of which you see here. But there was one Tourist who just had to go one better……

I had lost sight of Ian not long after we arrived at the collection area. I’d seen him hovering around the entrance, which was heavily protected by the hired security, but suddenly I saw him inside the collection area, eagerly snapping the drivers at close range! When we met up again afterwards, Ian sheepishly explained that he had just ‘walked in’, apparently having been mistaken for a team owner! So there you have it, the Tourists answer to Hugh Chamberlain!

We continued to watch as the drivers moved off on the parade but it did seem painfully slow and when I took my last shot it was already 7 pm and there were a lot of drivers still sitting in the cars in the collection area waiting to set off. By this time the 15 Tourists were spread all around the town, although I had sight most of the time of Nick – and Ian, of course.

We were due to be at the restaurant around 7.45 I believe and we therefore needed to make tracks there, so Nick, Allon and I eventually succeeded in dragging Ian away from his ‘team’ and headed up into the old town where we met up with Alan, Jeff and some of the others at the inevitable bar! In fact, I was very grateful at this point as approaching the centre of the town from this direction avoided the walk up the steep steps we had to make last year, which nearly finished me off!

A pastis later and we were back walking through the familiar streets to the restaurant where we were met shortly by Martyn and Jeremy’s groups, who had watched the parade from the same place as last year.

We enjoyed an excellent meal that evening and I had a far nicer time than at this point last year when I wasn’t feeling too bright. The foie gras was good as was the beef and the crème brulée rounded it all off nicely. In fact, I didn’t realise until later that we must have eaten a couple of restaurants up from Radio Le Mans’ John Hindhaugh as particular reference to taking dinner with the Hawaiian Tropic girls was mentioned in the commentary the next day, and we certainly saw them arriving for dinner!

The meal was over and at around 10.45 it was time to head back to the cars and to make our way to Le Grand Lucé and Le Cheval Blanc for the first time in 2008. All was quiet when we arrived and the ritualistic sharing out of rooms began…… The process ended up with Allon and I sharing the bunk bed (although I’m not sure that Allon was ultimately all that comfortable at the prospect of me in the top bunk!) with Martyn in the main double. And so it was to sleep with the 24 Heures du Mans to come tomorrow.