Monday morning dawned as bright and sunny as the day before after
our first night in our Le Mans 'home from home' and my early morning routine was
also unchanged. James was up and about much earlier than usual
however Nane wasn't feeling so well this morning. So the two of us decided to head
off to Auchan for breakfast. We had discovered the day before that Monday
was a bank holiday in France and although we did nip up to the Bar Havane to
check just in case, it was clearly very closed.... At Auchan, quite apart
from the irony of bumping into Madame from the bar doing her shopping, we
enjoyed some excellent coffee, a rather good pain au raisin and the 'maxi' size
pain au chocolat - a pastry on steroids that we would both heartily
recommend and which turned out to be better than any we had all week!
Having gorged ourselves on buttery goodies we did a spot of
shopping in Auchan where I bought a supply of my water and a universal
plug for my hotel room wash basin! We also bought some more croissants to
take back for Nane's breakfast. We had made a conscious decision the day
before that we wouldn't bother to rush into town for the start of scrutineering
as virtually all the cars due through before the lunch break were GT Ferraris
With all due respect to those cars and their teams, James and I are prototype
fans through and through, so we decided that the first cars we really wanted to
see were the Rebellions. These were due to go through into scrutineering
straight after the lunch break at 1.30.
We actually arrived around midday (although Nane remained at the
hotel as she was still feeling out of sorts), and we quickly located our car
park. Having enjoyed our time away from the main crowds the day before, we
decided to await the post-lunch action at the far end of the 'collection area'
again. It was as we were walking there that we spotted a familiar colour -
orange! Yes, enjoying a drink at the bar were Walter, Ton (Mr. Orange,
resplendent in an appropriately coloured shirt) and his son Sergio.
We
enjoyed a drink and a chat with these three and about 20 minutes or so later we
lucked in as the Rebellion truck arrived and the two lovely Rebellion
R1's were unloaded, literally right in front of us. Wonderful!
At about 1 am we headed back to the other end of the collection
area where Walter and I exchanged photos of each other (!) while Aston
Martins, Porsches and various other cars were unloaded.
The Audis were due in at 15.10 and the
sight of Reinhold Joest prowling the street (along with some of the drivers) meant that they couldn't be far
away...
By this time we had been joined by Eric (batmobile) and his
brother Stéphane as well as Romanian Tenths member
Victor. By this time James had been contacted by Nane, still in the hotel,
but now feeling a lot better and very bored there, so he headed back to pick her
up and bring her back into town to join us.
The scrutineering process continued in much the same way as it
always does and I was able to get some good shots of the Audis as they were
unloaded and pushed into position. There are no engines of course during
scrutineering. We hung on until the Corvettes arrived. I took quite
a shine to the new C7R's which to my mind looked that much more
sleeker and purposeful than the very familiar C6R's that they had replaced.
I know that we bumped into John Brooks at some point and talked
about the Greaves operation and possibilities for Tuesday, although for the life
of me I can't now recall whether that was on Sunday or Monday!
As things drifted towards a conclusion, we made the decision
around 5 pm that we had seen enough and made our way back to the car and drove
back to the hotel. It had been another very warm day and I needed to cool off
and rest my legs as I'd spent most of the day on my feet. Soon enough
though, our thoughts turned to dinner and we went out to another of our usual
haunts, the Hippo Grill where foie gras was consumed with gusto followed by a
fairly up-market burger. It was strange though, James and I had eaten here
many times before but this year it seemed a rather dull experience; there were
only about half a dozen diners there and the whole place seemed to be in need of
some serious updating, decor-wise. The food was reasonable, but in truth,
quite expensive for what it was, the burgers in particular.
Following our meal it was back as normal to the hotel for a
moderately early night. So, the first 'phase' of the trip was now over
with the conclusion of scrutineering and now we had the prospect of our first
visit to the circuit to look forward to tomorrow.
