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I woke up early on the Monday morning with a monstrous
headache. If I'd really hit the beers the night before then I guess
I would have deserved it, but I only had two.... The weather was pretty
off-putting too. We had a thunderstorm going on and there was a huge
strike of lightning just yards behind the hotel, which cleared my head pretty
quickly.... Although we didn't need to rush, we did want to be in town for
the re-start of scrutineering at 10, so we left the hotel at 9.15 to drive into
town and park down by the river. In fact, we had another rendezvous to
make. We were due to meet with John Brooks who this year was handling all the PR etc. for
Greaves Motorsport and through whom we were hoping to arrange a second Ten
Tenths garage visit on Friday.
So we were soon
parked up and it wasn't long before the realisation dawned on me that the new
sleeker and fitter James had no intention of walking the long way around up to
the square as we'd done previously, but intended to go straight up to the old
town - for those who've done it - up those steps..... If
recall correctly, the last time I made that journey was back in 2007 when the
Tourists headed up them to one of the restaurants after watching the parade.
I don't claim to be fit, quite the opposite. I can walk a fair distance
but I can assure you that my heart, lungs and head were pounding by the time I
got to the top of those steps. I nearly had to stop and make camp twice!
That was my exercise for the week done, there and then!
We soon made our
way into the Place de la République and met with John for coffee at The Globe
hotel. The potential
visit was still on, but we would need to see how practice went for the team.
Unsurprisingly, Walter, Ton and Kurt were early risers too this morning and
spotted us at the Globe and joined us for coffee.
By the time we
said goodbye to John, the teams were arriving and we were interested to have a
look at the Rebellions which were just about to go into the scrutineering area.
We followed them as they went through and also watched the team photograph
taking at the end of the process.
After watching
the various teams go through, we soon reached lunchtime, having eaten nothing
since the night before. We decided to take lunch right there outside the
scrutineering area at the Galand restaurant, where both James and I ordered the
crocque madame - and it turned out to be superb, easily the best I've ever had.
Delicious!
After lunch we
carried on watching the cars arriving for scrutineering however the procedure
seemed to be going more slowly than last year with long delays between arrivals.
The Audi contingent arrived, triggering considerable interest as we walked back
along the road to have a close look at the cars being removed from the
transporters.
We also saw the Aston Martins arrive, including the #97 with
it's as yet unveiled special livery (although when it reappeared having been
through scrutineering, I wasn't as impressed as I'd hoped to be....).
The day began to
drag after a traffic accident held up the arrivals of both of the works
Corvettes and the works Manthey Porsches, at which point, having reached 6.45,
we decided to head on back to the hotel.
We walked back through the old
town which was looking splendid in the evening sunshine and back (thankfully)
down those steps to the car.
On returning to
the hotel I took a quick shower and we then headed out for a meal. With a
degree of trepidation after my second experience there last year, we decided to
go to Del Arte where I passed on the opportunity to indulge again in a
'tarmacadam' pizza, preferring to go instead for the substantially more
palatable Pizza Marocco, resplendent with it's merguez, chorizo and fried egg
topping - which simply had to be caught on 'film' for posterity...
So, another good
meal brought our first full day in Le Mans to an end. We had one day of
total rest now before practice and qualifying would begin.
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