Le Mans 2012 - Ayse's Story
Page 2 - Sunday
Two Ferries, A Big Mac
and Checking the Glue at Arnage....
We awoke to grey skies and drizzle on our arrival in Le Havre and disembarked just after 8 am and made our way out of a Le Havre, greatly enjoying hearing 'Emily' (James' new sat-nav!) direct us along the 'Winstern Shersheel Boulevard'....
Having set Emily to avoid toll roads, she immediately decided to avoid the bridge just outside Le Havre (the Pont de Tankerville) and took us on a very strange journey through a large industrial estate, before depositing us at the edge of the river Seine, with the instruction, 'Board the ferry'! Having left one ferry only 45 minutes or so before, neither James or I had expected to be boarding another one quite so soon! We could have gone back of course, but we thought - in for a cent, in for a Euro - we'd give it a try!
This turned out to be the ferry at Bac de Quillebeuf which took us over to Port Jérôme on the other side of the river Seine. We then continued our drive along a very pleasant scenic route to Le Mans after this unexpected and very surreal diversion.
We arrived in Le Mans just before noon, sadly just too late to book into our hotel, so we took a drive around the town, then down the Mulsanne Straight and from there on to Indianapolis and Arnage, where we stopped briefly to take our first look at the new gravel trap installed on the outside of Arnage. We were both quite interested in the strip of astroturf laid there, wondering if it would get ripped up like the similar strip on the straight at Silverstone had last September....
We got back in the car fairly quickly - it was by now raining reasonably hard - and drove on down to the Porsche Curves where we investigated the viewing area at what was clearly these days the 'Travel Destinations' campsite. We were hoping to find out way in here some time during practice or the race. We actually wandered up onto the track for a look at the hallowed tarmac and to admire the view the drivers would soon be seeing a lot of.
But by now we were both feeling pretty hungry, so we decided to stop to sample some traditional French fare - at McDonalds! A couple of burgers and fries later we toured the centre of Le Mans for about 20 minutes looking for a good parking spot from which to walk to scrutineering, which was to be held this year in the Place de la Republic.
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