Aysedasi's Le Mans

Le Mans 2011 - Ayse's Story - Page 3 - Wednesday

Two Become Four and Off to the Circuit!

Free Practice - Part 1

I slept well on Tuesday night in those familiar surroundings, not waking until just before 8 am.  In fact, I'd only been awake for about two minutes when Jayne phoned and I was trying to wake up properly as we spoke!  After a refreshing shower and a cafetiere of coffee (I'd brought the real stuff with me this year!), it was out in more glorious sunshine and having wrested James from his 'pit', we headed off to the Bar Havane for yet more coffee....  James was still feeling a little under the weather tum-wise, but after a relaxed hour we returned to the hotel to meet Tony and his son Tim from their journey down after their overnight crossing. 

After they'd found their rooms and stowed their gear, it was at last time to set off to the circuit for the first time in 2011.  Today we had the first four-hour free practice session starting at 4 pm to look forward to, followed by the first of the three qualifying sessions proper, from 10 pm to midnight.  When we arrived in the Garage Blanc we were puzzled by our parking tickets which were for row 22 - but as far as we could see, the rows only went up to 21!  It didn't matter today, as we could park anywhere we liked but all we could see was a small amount of space alongside the fence (which itself was alongside row 21) and we just assumed that somehow we were going to have to squeeze in there.  This gave rise to concerns about getting the cars out of there during race night when we wanted to head off to Arnage and Mulsanne.  We guessed that all would be revealed later.....

We were soon into the circuit, through the new electronic turnstiles - no more hand-held 'zappers' - and walked along the front of the tribune.  We decided to watch the start of the first session from the Dunlop grandstand overlooking the chicane first installed in 1987.  Of course that's the beauty of the practice sessions at Le Mans, grandstand choice and seating is completely free.  So we gradually meandered our way around to the stand before settling down for the first action of the 2011 24 Heures du Mans.

After the issues I'd had with my camera on the way down, I was keen to try it out, somehow optimistically hoping that the problem would have simply disappeared.  To my despair, I began to suffer the same problems from the very first shots.  I still wasn't what was causing the problem, but I was fairly convinced it was the lens and not the camera, as the problem disappeared if I used my short zoom lens.  Unfortunately though, that lens was no real use from the stands or spectator areas.  It was seriously frustrating, as was the prospect of having to put up with it for the whole of the rest of the week.  And the annoying thing is that it should never have happened - I could have purchased another lens - even if for £30-40 over my original budget, which I believe would have solved the problem.  Having switched the camera on and off countless times, changed cards, batteries and anything else I could think of, the problem remained, sometimes intermittent, sometimes constant.  I eventually twigged that for some unknown reason, the shutter issue was only manifesting itself when I zoomed over 170 on the old 100-300 lens.  If I stayed at that point, everything seemed OK.  The solution wasn't particularly pVerdanable, but at least I could take pictures with a degree of zoom, in the knowledge that there was likely to be a fair bit of cropping and enlarging to be done later..... (or not as the case may be - Ayse - February 2012!). 

We break off here for a Peugeot moment on the motorwind...... 

And normal service was resumed.....  Although in the early part of the session, quite a few drivers were clearly testing how hard they could push here in front of us!

It was a good vantage-point though - we'd managed to find four seats quite near the top of the stand.  I had sat here briefly during the night in 2007, the only other occasion having been way back in 1990.  I would have enjoyed it more had I been able to rely on my camera, but it was good, nonetheless. 

We stayed there for an hour an a half before leaving the stand and wandering down towards the Esses, fortified by a bag of churros on the way!