Le Mans 2012 - Ayse's Story

Page 13 - Friday

Toyota, the Tourists (and What's in a Name?)

So after the relative relaxation of our first 2-3 days in France, things had hotted up and our schedule remained pretty busy from hereon in, with the major events of the big pit visit and the Ten Tenths meeting still to come.  But the Friday morning was still in accordance with our 'standard plan', with breakfast at the Bar Havane by now absolutely de rigeur.  There was therefore no rush at all this morning as we had no other commitments before the afternoon's pit visit.  In fact, it's another case of a 'lost' couple of hours here as I know from my texts to and from James at the time that we went back to the hotel after our breakfast and didn't prepare to leave again for the circuit until about 12.30. 

But this was an important day - the day of the pit visit.  We had done very well in previous years, having visited Embassy in '08, Speedy Team Sebah in '09, Drayson in '10 and then finally Audi in 2011.  All of these visits were organised for us by my pal James, aka my Ten Tenths co-moderator, Bentley 03.  To be entirely honest though, after all this effort, I did feel that it was about time that one of more of the other Ten Tenths members had a go at organising something, but the problem for James was that he had no acquired something of a reputation for pulling something rather special out of the bag, so much so that we also knew that was now interest in the pitlane itself as to where the Tenthers would be going next!

I knew fairly early on that James was working on something special again for 2012, but we he broke the news on the forum that the visit would be to Toyota, it was greeted with disbelief!  What I do know is that he worked long and hard on it, not only on the initial agreement but on the organisation that always has to follow in these things now.  This includes the often rather difficult task of allocating places on the visits to the Ten Tenths members, as while you would obviously love to accommodate all of those who deserve a place, there will always be disappointment for some. 

There were to be two visits to the Toyota pits during the Friday 'walkabout' with the lucky participants meeting at the pit-wall at 2.45 and 3.00 pm, with 10 Tenthers (rather apt that!) in each group, plus James.  The first group consisted of PascaLM, BernardB, Batmobile, RBlanshard, Kpy, lemansfan, Simmi, wewantourdarbyback, NelisB and CTD.  In group 2, I was joined by Tony, isynge, GT6, nobster, Mal, Truckosaurus, GTFour, bella and Vincegail. 

James, Tony and I arrived in the pitlane at about 14.20 and already Walter and Eric were there, soon joined by Robert from Texas.  As 2.45 approached, all of the other group 1 Tenthers (and quite a few of the second group as well!) duly appeared, all very much aware that a 'no-show' for your place on the visit would immediately be visited in the most severe punishment....  As it happened, I nearly ended up in the first group.  I merrily joined them as it set off to the Toyota garage before the error of my ways was pointed out  - and Vincegail did the same!I was a little alarmed at this point when our guide Alastair Moffitt, Toyota's head-honcho PR man told James that there could only be a maximum of 20 guests, not 20 plus him!  I did make sure later that Alastair would be giving James his own special pit visit after the two groups had been through. 

With the groups assembling with only 15 minutes in between we had all assumed that the two visits would necessarily be pretty whistle-stop, but we were quite wrong.  The members of group 2 (and James) ended up waiting outside the front of the pits for a good 30-40 minutes  while group 1 had their visit.  That was good though, as it gave us a chance to have a chat with friends old and new, like Bella (Maria) who was having her Le Mans baptism. 

Before long it was our turn in group 2 and we were led into the back of the garage.  Sadly (but not surprisingly these days), we were told at the very start that photographs could not be taken - which of course is why this page is conspicuous for it's lack of illustrations.  This was of course the same as at Audi last year, so we were used to it and it made it very much a case of look - and look as closely as you like - but absolutely no pictures.....    It was an excellent visit.  The guys at Toyota were working hard getting the cars ready for the start but we were free to poke our noses in wherever we liked as long as we didn't get in the way.  And all along, Alastair deftly fielded all of our questions.

The visit inevitably provided an interesting contrast with that provided by our hosts of last year, Audi.  The Toyota effort at Le Mans in 2012 was clearly a very significant operation, but the scale of it was obviously dwarfed by Audi.  Yes, there were no doubt things that Toyota didn't want us to see or talk to us about, but there were no covers quickly pulled over engine bays here in case we saw something we shouldn't.  But, as with Audi in 2011, it was hugely gratifying to see a big name in our sport prepared to take the time and make the effort to reach out to the fans and involve them, in the knowledge (hopefully) that they weren't dealing with typical star-struck F1-style supporters, but instead people who, having got themselves to the location of sportscar racing's Holy Grail were intensely interested and actually highly knowledgeable. 

After group 2 had finished it's visit, Alastair took James in for his special solo tour which (so I gathered later) included an introduction to Mr. Toyota motorsport himself!  Tony and I gradually said farewell to the other Tenthers as they went their separate ways and while we waited for James to emerge from the Toyota garage.

That spelled the end of the circuit activities for Friday, but the day wasn't over yet!  Some weeks earlier I had arranged that we would meet up with the Tourists for a meal at our favourite restaurant, Le Belinois at Moncé en Belin.  The Tourists numbers were severely depleted this year; Martyn was abroad at his daughter's wedding - an occasion which seemed to have been arranged with scandalous disregard for Martyn's need to be at Le Mans!  Ian's son Robert was still living and working in Australia and other regulars were unable to make it for health and other reasons, so in 2012, the Tourists consisted of just Ian, Alan and Alan's friend Clive.

We had arranged to rendezvous at the restaurant at 8 pm and Ian's invite had also extended to Paul Truswell.  James, Tony and I were the first to arrive and were thus the first to receive the unexpected surprise....   The night before, on our way back to the hotel from Mulsanne, we'd passed Le Belinois and I noticed then that they had put up a new sign.  Bearing in mind that I first went there in 1990 - 22 years before - and that it had probably been open for many years before that, I thought it was probably time for that very familiar black and white sign to change, although I always rather liked it's stylish simplicity. 

On our arrival however, the realisation dawned - we had arrived not at Le Belinois but instead at Le Monciacum - 'traditional restaurant and pizzeria'!  Ian soon arrived with Alan and Clive and when we were shown to our table we were comforted to note that there was indeed a traditional menu so we wouldn't have to resort to a pizza (with or without lashings of dried minced beef!), after all!    We learned in due course that Madame and Monsieur had decided to retire a few months earlier.  Mme. ran front of house while M. was the chef.  It was quite strange to think of one of my favourite restaurants in France having now changed hands, but we hoped that the traditional menu would live up to the old 'Belinois' reputation. 

Paul arrived a little after everyone else and we pressed on with our meal.  I started (inevitably) with foie gras, followed by king prawn and scallop kebabs and rounded off with a tarte tatin with absolutely delicious ice cream.  The food was very nice indeed, if not quite matching the old Le Belinois standards, and the company was very good too.  Ian, Alan and Clive were of course staying at Le Cheval Blanc in Le Grand Lucé as usual.

It was quite strange to be sitting here in such a familiar place again, one that I had visited so many times over the last 20 years, originally on the Saturday evening - race night - where the main attraction was the ability to clean ourselves up with hot water and soft towels - and on at least one occasion, dry ourselves off from the rain (1995).  Later we started to go there to eat on the Friday night - definitely a more leisurely and sophisticated evening!  But here I was on what was already the seventh night of my 2012 Le Mans trip.  There really was a huge contrast between the way I used to 'do' Le Mans with Ian and the way that I was now able to do it with James and Tony.  It was difficult for me to contemplate how I managed to just jump from one 'style' to the other between 2009 and 2010. 

Whilst the evening was most enjoyable, the service was quite slow and our hopes of being back at the hotel and in bed by about 11 pm had long disappeared into the ether.  James, Tony and I - and particularly Paul - had long stints ahead of us without sleep, and the more we could cram in now, the better.  We did eventually get the bill and move on out but not before the owner's dog disgraced itself by taking a leak on Paul's pullover!  The staff were mortified and and sponged it out for him but not before James, Tony and I had decided that Paul should no longer take his meals at 'Smoking Dog' but instead at 'Le Chien qui Pee'!

We said our goodbyes to Paul and to Ian, Alan and Clive, fully expecting to bump into them again somewhere over the next couple of days and set off back to the hotel, getting there some time after midnight, with our hopes of getting a really good night's sleep in preparation for the race somewhat dashed, but at least we didn't need to be up at the crack of dawn in the morning, and it had been a most enjoyable, if somewhat surprising evening!

For anyone who fancies trying out Le Monciacum - click on the picture for their website.