Aysedasi's Le Mans

Le Mans 2012 - Ayse's Story

Page 3 - Sunday

Scrutineering - Up Close and Personal.....

We spent about 10 minutes or so checking out what seemed fairly limited parking opportunities, when all of a sudden, we happened upon an excellent car par, only a few minutes walk from our goal.  So we secured the car and our worldly goods and headed up towards the Place and started looking around.  We'd actually arrived before any of the scrutineering had started, but - almost predictably - the first people we bumped into were Walter (lemansfan from Ten Tenths) and his friends Tom and Evelyn.  Within minutes we were joined by another Tenths regular, Eric (batmobile) and his son.

Thanks to Evelyn, we got ourselves on a tour of the inner scrutineering area, but our timing was a little unfortunate, as there was still very little going on as the first cars were only just beginning to line up to go through.  Although we did spot a certain Johan Hindhaughsson interviewing driver Steve Johnson for Radio Le Mans....

We stayed at scrutineering for a couple of hours, seeing such notables as Audi and Pescarolo arrive. 

We actually moved away from the scrutineering 'square', deciding instead to hang around the area where the teams were arriving with the cars, which was both more entertaining and less of a crush of bodies, bearing in mind it was Sunday afternoon. 

We eventually departed at around 5 pm and walked back to the car which was safe and sound where we'd left it and Emily did an excellent job to take us through the town centre and out again back to our hotel.  We were now able to check in and I found that I had my third different room in three years - but all three of them were side by side - I was just pleased to be facing the rear of the hotel - much quieter!

We decided to renew our acquaintance from last year with the Hippopotamus Grill for dinner - the lure of the foie gras being simply too great....  This was followed by excellent steak brochettes and the obligatory crème brulée for dessert.  The only downside of the evening meal was tooth-related for me.  I had some to Le Mans with a very loose crown but while I was eating my steak I lost a large filling from a different tooth.  I really could have done without that! 

After the meal we headed back to the hotel for a relatively early night ready for another full day at scrutineering tomorrow.  That was the theory of course - the reality, having taken my laptop to Le Mans with me again, was that I spent the next couple of hours on Tenths catching up with what else was going on!