|
Now that the Le Mans week had started in
earnest, we were keen for more and so were ready to move on out from the hotel
by 10 o'clock on Thursday morning. But, as every morning, there was a vital need
for coffee before we embarked on any thing serious! Instead of proceeding
towards Le Mans to have our coffee in Arnage, we decided to head in the other
direction towards St Saturnin, on the basis that there would inevitably be a bar
there somewhere - and there was - and an excellent one too, although we were a
bit late for the croissants, having to share the last remaining one! But the
coffee was excellent! After our leisurely start to the day we made our way in
the direction of the circuit with the weather now looking decidedly dodgy. We
stopped off at the local Auchan and had a spot of lunch while we were there.
Thursday morning is actually a little bit of
a blur now (as I write this some time after the event), but I do remember being
in the new "Village" in the early afternoon when we suffered our only really
significant rain of the week. It started to come down quite hard but we were
able to take refuge under the awning of one of the ACO's merchandise stalls
(where we met Sander, formerly of PlanetLeMans, now working for Spyker). The
rain soon eased off and we meandered back down behind the pits intending
eventually to find a decent spot for the first track action of the day, the
Group C practice. But as we were walking along towards the tunnel over to the
Maison Blanche entrance, the rain suddenly came down hard again and we found
ourselves making a dash into the nearest grandstand.
By the time I got my camera out it was 3.38,
just over 20 minutes to go to the start of the session - and it was chucking it
down. The sky was full of murky grey cloud and the track was already very wet.
By the time the Group C cars emerged the track was so wet that they could do
little more than splish and splash their way around for an hour, hence my lack
of photographs. As a great lover of the Group C era, I'm sad to say it was
a great disappointment to see the cars being driven so slowly and carefully, and
although I understand the desire to avoid damaging these precious vehicles, I confess
it made it a very long hour indeed!
I actually had some camera problems as well
at this point (which added to the lack of photos. One of my CF cards
decided that it didn't particularly want to work any more - a nuisance, as it
was an expensive card - but fortunately I had plenty of others.....
The rain did ease towards the
end of the Group C session and with time to kill we looked into one or two of
the stalls behind the stands where I managed to find a copy of the Mike O'Leary
book on Mario Andretti in which a number of my photographs were published. I
actually have
a copy which is signed to me by Mario himself. None of us
had any great interest in the next event, the Porsche Carrera Cup practice, but
we did watch a little of it on the TV screen in the cafe at the back of the ACO
stand while we indulged in more coffee and croissants.
The next practice session for the Le Mans
cars started at 7 pm and we gradually walked around the Dunlop Curve past the
bridge to watch the start of the session from the top of the hill. But there was
a problem for the team. James's cousin Julie and her husband Andy had been due
to arrive at Le Mans for some time, but we learned that they had been having car
troubles so were delayed. They did eventually join us up on the bank on the run
down from the Dunlop Bridge, having abandoned their sick car in the
garage rouge, no mean feat considering that they didn't have a garage rouge
ticket! They would spend much of Friday sorting their car out.
Sadly there are no photos from here as the
spot is particularly photo unfriendly due to the fencing and we stayed there
rather a long time while Andy and Julie calmed down after their fraught
experience! After an hour or so
here we crossed over the bridge and made our way down to the ACO club so that
Tony could sign Julie and Andy in as his guests. By the time the first half of the
session ended at 9 pm, we were all feeling pretty hungry and the pizzas in the ACO's club area were just the ticket, even if they did take a while to sort the
orders!
The discussion had been dominated in the
last hour or two by Julie and Andy's vehicular dilemma and without wishing to
sound unfair to them, James, Tony and I were pretty keen to get back to the circuit
to see some action. So it was eventually agreed that Julie and Andy would summon
assistance and depart now in the hope that they could get someone to take a look
at their car.
Having bade the two a temporary farewell,
James Tony and I headed back to the stalls along the back of the grandstands. We
had it in mind to take in the view from the Maison Blanche grandstand. It seemed
a shame not to take up our last opportunity to watch for free from a different
grandstand, particularly as the only other time I'd been in the stand was in
1992, 18 years ago. Of course, as is the way with the ACO, the Maison
Blanche grandstand is now called the Tribune La Sarthe. Time had really cracked
on and the stand was now virtually full but we managed to squeeze in about 4 to
5 rows from the front.
I was surprised at how good the view was, a lot better
than I remembered. I took my first photo from the stand at a few moments before
11 pm, leaving an hour of the practice to go. Obviously there wasn't much light
about but on winding the "film” speed right up, I got some acceptable - even
occasionally arty - shots.
And a suitably 'arty'
finish.....
All too soon the session was over and the
grid was set for the weekend's race, with Peugeot already looking completely
unassailable with all four of their cars in the first four places and
accusations of "sandbagging" already being made... As for the French spectators,
well they were justifiably delighted, local boy Sébastien Bourdais setting the
pole time.
As on Wednesday night we were parked right
at the entrance to the garage blanc, however we couldn't rush off until we knew
that Julie and Andy had got back to the hotel okay. We got that message at 12.40
and then headed back to the hotel, arriving at just about the same time as Julie
and Andy, who had been given a lift back from the garage where their car was now
awaiting investigation. We finally turned in at around 1:30 am.
|
