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For many
years my trips to Le Mans didn't really start until Friday - in fact, it wasn't
until 1999, my 14th Le Mans, that I actually arrived at the circuit on the
Friday instead of race-day. If getting to the circuit a day earlier was
any kind of revelation at the time, then my arrival last year long before any
on-track action had taken place was pretty astonishing and left me with a
powerful desire to make up for many years of lost time. And this was
probably going to be a busy Le Mans Friday, but before I get on and describe it,
a little background information.....
Each year
since 2008 there's been a Ten Tenths pit visit on the Friday - organised by my
resourceful partner James. We visited Embassy in '08, Speedy Team Sebah in
'09 and Drayson last year. Weeks before Le Mans, James had pulled off
quite a coup by securing a visit for us to top US team Highcroft Racing, however
Highcroft's withdrawal from Le Mans in mid-May threw those plans into disarray.
So James endeavoured to find another visit for us, but by 30th May, just a week
before we were due to leave for France, those plans had to be abandoned.
It appeared that in 2011 there would be no Tenths pit visit.
But just a
day later James posted on the forum that the visit was no longer abandoned, but
just 'on hold' and the following afternoon, 1st June, James formally announced
that there would be a Ten Tenths pit visit after all on Friday afternoon!
I'm not about to try and tell the whole story, but in short, the mountain came
to Mohammed! James was contacted by one of the team's top marketing
people. An occasional Tenths visitor, he'd seen the demise of our intended
pit visit and stepped in to assist. I could use the phrase 'to cut a long
story short' but the reality was that from what James told me, it was actually
quite a short story! From the initial contact to agreement being reached
seems to have been achieved in just two days, quite astonishing bearing in mind
the level of negotiation that James has generally had to put into these things -
another example perhaps of this team's famed efficiency? Our benefactor
was one Florian Zitzlsperger - we were going to see Audi!
Once the
visit was up and running, James had the unenviable task of deciding who the 20
lucky Tenths members to go on the visit would be. A number of names were
considered to be 'givens' due to their forum and other contributions and I was
fortunate not to have to stake my claim to a place. Needless to say when
the details of the visit were posted by James on the forum the news was met with
a mixture of incredulity and excitement. As far as we were aware, this was
the first time that 'ordinary' fans had been invited to see what only Audi
guests had seen in the past. James soon had the allocations worked out,
the majority of places going to long-established forum members. OK, now
back to Friday....
We had a
typically slow start to our day. Although we'd originally intended to take
breakfast at the Bar Havane, James was still making the most of his beauty sleep
after his tummy trouble earlier in the week and we decided to skip the bar and
head straight in to the circuit around 11 am. We set off for the circuit
with Tony and Tim not very far behind. Time was a little tight as we
needed to get across to the pits via the underpass and along through the hordes
of people in the pitlane (as many as I could ever remember in the past), to be
at our rendezvous point opposite the Audi garages at 12.15. The visit had
been split into two groups of 10, visiting at 12.15 and 1.15. I was in the
first group with Tony and Tim, plus our great French friends Eric and Bernard
and Mal, Ian, Dani, Simon and Chris. We started spotting well-known faces
as we approached the garages through the throng - everyone was keen to be there
on time and some of the second group were also there already.
Shortly after
we arrived, James took a call from Florian and we soon met up with both him
and Audi's Purchasing Coordinator Rudi Fuchs who came out of the garage to meet
us. The timing was spot on too as it had started raining by now - not
hard, but enough to make you pretty wet if you stood in it for any length of
time. Florian and Rudi took us out of the pitlane and around the back of
the garages where we were given the temporary loan of what Rudi described as the
'very expensive' security badges, without which we wouldn't be getting in
anywhere! From there it was up the stairs and into one of the Audi
hospitality suites overlooking the pitlane, where we were immediately offered a
welcome beer and I was able to look for the first time out of the windows I had
seen so often from the outside. And out there it was raining quite hard
now... Florian introduced us to the third member of the welcoming party,
Chris Reinke, the R18 Technical Project Leader, who would be dealing with all of
our technical questions - well, those he was able to give us an answer to
anyway.....!
The one thing
you'll note immediately is that there is only a limited photographic record of the visit.
One of the stipulations by Audi was that there should be no photography at all
in the pits and we were required to leave all cameras and mobile phones in the
hospitality area. It wasn't until near the end of the visit that Florian
confirmed that there was no problem with taking photos in the hospitality area,
by which time it was a bit late for me to get the camera out. So the few
pictures on this page come with many thanks to Pascal and his mobile phone camera!
After the
initial introductions and background to the Audi Le Mans operation from Florian,
we were taken down to the garage itself. Rudi talked to us out back about
parts and supplies as we stood in the midst of a bewildering array of bodywork
sections, gearboxes and rear suspension assemblies! After this we were
ushered into the pit garage itself where I found myself standing up close and
personal to the #1 Audi, with a great view into what looked an incredibly
cramped cockpit with buttons and switches everywhere. At the bottom of the
page you'll find
a link to a video taken by Bernard's friend Dominique from outside the garage in
which you can see me looking very studious and interested - which of course I
was! Just click on the download pic....
Chris Reinke
dealt with all of the questions thrown at him and before long we were ushered
back upstairs to the hospitality area where we found the members of the second
group waiting for their turn. We were lucky to have been the first group,
as we had the chance to stay there and ask more questions while the second group
went down to the pits on their visit. At the end of the two visits we were
each presented with a gift from Audi, a copy of their 'Truth in 24' DVD, the
superb record of their epic 2008 victory. I'd already seen the original
version, but this was the one revoiced by Toby Moody.
It had been a
fascinating pit visit, made all the more enjoyable by the fact it had been put
together at such short notice. The fact that this was a new development
for Audi was obvious. If I'm truthful, it wasn't the most
detailed or technical pit visit we've ever had, that accolade probably goes to
Speedy Team Sebah in 2009, but for me that didn't detract from my enjoyment one
little bit. This was a window not previously opened to us 'ordinary' fans to the
world of what is undoubtedly one of the greatest ever sportscar teams, where
perfection is clearly an expectation, not just something to be strived for.
From a personal point of view, I'm very grateful to Audi for giving us this
opportunity and particularly to Florian and James who managed to put it together
at such short notice.
Dominique's
Pit Visit Video
(I've taken the liberty of
downloading this from YouTube and have hosted it on Mediafire, which I'm told is
a pretty reputable host for which you need no membership. Below is a
screenshot of where you need to click to download once you get there - don't
click on any other download buttons on the page - it will tell you when the
download has started).
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