Aysedasi's Le Mans

Le Mans 2013 - Ayse's Story

Page 10 - Friday

A Brief Respite?  Not on your Life!

The day before the race has always been a special day for me.  For most of my early trips to Le Mans, Friday was actually the day I left home to travel to France and for a number of years I didn't get to the circuit until Saturday lunchtime.  In 1999 (my 14th trip), the Tourists brought the start forward to Thursday, so for the fist time, we arrived at the circuit a day earlier, in time to catch some of the pits walkabout.  That became a feature most years thereafter, so Friday was special from that point of view.  Of course, since I started travelling with James in 2010, I've been in the wonderfully luxurious position of having already been at Le Mans for several days by the time Friday rolls around....

But the special nature of Friday at Le Mans, in what has become almost a tradition for those who are members of the Ten Tenths forum, began in 2008, when James organised the first Ten Tenths Pit Visit - to Embassy Racing.  In 2009, we were guests of Speedy Team Sebah, while 2010 was the turn of Drayson Racing.  In 2011 James pulled off a real coup by arranging for us to be guests of Audi while in 2012 he matched that by organising a trip to Toyota.  In 2013 however, James willingly relinquished the organiser's hat to Le Mans resident Eric Vaillant ('Batmobile' on Ten Tenths), who had been working long and hard on a visit to Oak Racing, a local team, one of the strongest in the LMP2 category.  But, once again, I get ahead of myself.....

After the late night the night before, I didn't wake up until about 8.30, not feeling particularly bright.  But the three of us were up and off to the circuit at 9.45, deciding not to make the breakfast visit to the Bar Havane. 

We parked up in the garage blanc and headed straight across to the back of the paddock to make our way in to the pitlane.  We had to get in their early, as today, there was to be a second (or actually, a first) pit visit, to Greaves Motorsport, generously organised by John Brooks.  As soon as we neared the Greaves pits, we started bumping into Tenthers....  My memory has faded severely as I write this part of the story, some five months after the event, however John had kindly made the offer of a visit some weeks beforehand and notwithstanding some practice issues for the team, he was able to deliver the goods.  Ironically therefore, having been able to sit back and leave Eric to organise the 'official' Tenths pit visit, James nevertheless found himself organising people for another one!  My note made at the time suggests that the following were able to visit Greaves - Alex, Rene, wewantourdarbyback, Natalie, Beetle, Eps, Guy, Muppet, Kpr, Dominique and Tony.  A mix of real names and forum names there.... 

It had been a good opportunity to offer places on a visit to some of those who had missed out on the allocation of places to Oak Racing in the afternoon and by all accounts, it had turned out to be an excellent visit, with John acting as a very effective 'tour guide'.  Those who went on the visits (in twos and threes) were universally pleased that they had the chance to go.  So a big thanks on behalf of Ten Tenths to Greaves Motorsport and John Brooks for offering and organising the visit. 

My memory is a bit of a blur after this but I do recall taking lunch in the paddock behind the pits - yes, another baguette! - before we started to assemble at the entry to the main paddock ready for the visit to Oak Racing.  Unfortunately for me, I was nursing quite a migraine by this time.  There were to be two visits, one at 1.45 and the other at 2.10.  On the first visit were Vincent, Mike E, Victor, Simon, Bernard, Remco, Simmi, Tim, Gingers and Water, while the second visit would comprise Chris, Eric, Stéphane, James, Dani, Mathias, Ian, Nobby, Pascal, Dominique, Tony and myself. 

It was an interesting visit, not perhaps with the same technical depth as some of the others we had been on, but very enjoyable nonetheless.  Everyone was grateful to Oak Racing for hosting us and of course to Eric for putting a lot of work in to organising it. 

We eventually left the circuit and arrived back at the hotel at about 15.40, giving us a good chance to have a rest (and for me to try and get shot of my migraine) before going out for our evening meal. 

You will remember that we had intended to eat last year at a regular haunt of the Tourists, Le Belinois, only to find that it had 'morphed' in Le Monciacum, primarily a pizza restaurant.  But we decided to go back again with our friend Paul Truswell from Radio Le Mans.  When we got there, Paul's bright red Audi was sitting in the car park already and we were soon in and getting ready to eat.  It would be too much to expect Le Monciacum to live up to the culinary delights that Le Belinois used to deliver, but we had a decent meal and more importantly had the chance to have a good old chinwag with Paul about the events of the week so far and what the weekend would bring.  Great fun.  (And no peeing dogs, either!). 

After our meal it was back to the hotel to get our heads do0wn for the most important night's sleep of the year, our last sleep until Sunday evening......