We knew that Glickenhaus were going to be at scrutineering by 10 am and I was really keen to see them so with the experience of the traffic on Friday, James and I decided that we needed to get into town fairly early if we were going to catch them so we were up and ready good and early, leaving the hotel just after 9 am for the journey in, again with James driving. Of course, the Law of Sod elected to play it's part this morning and we sailed in with no traffic issues at all so that by 9.35 we were already in position as the Glicks arrived on their flatbeds.
As you can see, after the Glicks there were legions of Ferraris to go through, while after the early lunch break Toyota and the Porsche GT Team would be bringing up the rear before the early finish at 3 pm. After a good wander around, we stopped off at Galand at around 10.30 for croissants and coffee.
There were a couple of chaps sat at the next table and I noticed from their shirts that they seemed to be either fans of or connected with Absolute Racing (who had taken over the Hardpoint Racing entry at very late notice). An elderly French chap sat down at the next table to them and tried to engage them in conversation but it was obvious that he had no English and they had no French.... I took the opportunity to engage them in conversation by asking them if they had been to Le Mans before, whereupon one of the chaps said he had raced last year. The pair turned out to be Andrew Haryanto and Martin Rump from the #99 Porsche. They were clearly enjoying Le Mans - their car had been scrutineered yesterday but they decided to come back into town again!
After breakfast we made another tour of the Place and bumped into Eric (Batmobile on Ten Tenths) and had a good chat with him in the now baking sunshine. He was soon joined by his brother Stéphane. Around this time we learned of the arrival of Tony and Tim. We had monitored their progress ferry-wise and James had been checking for messages from Tony to confirm that they were in town. We duly met up and soon after we established that Galand were doing meals so we managed to nab a table outside for crocque madames. I even decided to just have the salad with it instead of the sauté potatoes.... By the time the food had arrived, the weather had quickly changed again from brilliant sunshine to rain, thankfully much lighter than the day before. By adjusting the position of the table slightly we were able to eat without too much interference from the wet stuff!
The rest of the afternoon was spent alternating between the collecting road and the Place itself and we saw the last few cars through, including the Toyotas (which had arrived by the time we finished our lunch). Having had our fill of scrutineering we all headed back to the hotel before going out for dinner at the Hippo Grill again. After the food excesses of the day before, I decided to go 'light' with the foie gras, then the sea bass (which was very good) followed by crême brulée. So after a good day, we retired to our rooms at the QP, in preparation for an even earlier start the following morning.
