RangeR BoB

Wow.

I am going to write a preliminary review now, but you'll have to bear with me as I wade through 425 Mb(!) of pictures and movies that we shot over the weekend.


The Plan

I was going to run up to Le Mans alone. Plans to get a train and a hotel didn't work (you are late to book now for 2004, if that is an indication). SO I was going to drive and throw a sleeping bag in the back of the car and camp. I idly mentioned this to a coworker of mine, Dean, and he got this glazed look. At first I thought he had no idea what I was babbling about, but then it dawned on me that he was wishing he could go, so I said "want to come?" Some fast checking and furious leave chit work, and were were ready to go, under the stipulation that he be back to work by 0700 on Monday.

The Trip:

The drive to Le Mans is quite lovely and very historic. It covers 850 kilometers through the west of Germany and most of France. We left Stuttgart around 0700 Friday, and headed east towards Saarbrucken on the German-French border. From there we went west through Nancy, Metz, Paris and then turned southwest for the last 150 km to Le Mans.

The Western European countries have followed Germany's lead and built limited access highways that cover a lot of ground quickly. They look and feel like our Interstates, and with a speed limit of 130 kph (81 mph) they are very similar in capacity to cover a lot of ground quickly.

Unlike Germany, where the Autobahns are free, the Autoroutes in France (as well as the Autostradas in Italy and the Autopistes in Spain) are toll roads. We shelled out over €30 each way in tolls.

Tickets

Upon arrival in Le Mans, we followed the amply marked signs to the track. It was at this point that I began to fall in love with Traffic
Circles (roundabouts to the Brits). These made an incredible difference in our travel time compared to stoplights. Unknowing, we drove right up to the Expo center next to the track and parked. We walked out to the expo center and got our tickets (€57 each) and parking pass (€14) for the "Bleu" parking area.

Pit Day

We left our car where it was and walked over to the track complex for the Pit walk through. The pits were open, so we walked through the tunnel under the track and over to through the midway to the pits. The cars were all in their garages and mechanics were working on their cars. The Lister garage was closed, however. Their car crashed heavily in qualifying, and was not able to rejoin the fray. 49 remained...

Museum

After walking through the pits, we went back to the Museum and walked through. They have an awful lot of old cars there ,but the racing cars are hidden and you run across them at the end of the tour. Admission: €4 each, with race ticket. €6 without.

Where to stay:

Getting a hotel room on Le Mans was not an option, but we stopped just to make sure. Near the circuit is the ZI Sud (South Industrial Zone) in Le Mans, which also has several hotel complexes, as well as a large number of farm implement dealers and manufacturing concerns. All the hotels were full, so I asked which hotel might have places. I was told I'd probably have to go to Alençon, about an hour north. Off we went. We followed the road, and took the loop off the traffic circle that took us along country roads instead of the Autoroute, to save more tolls.

As we drive along, we made several more inquiries at hotels, and also no luck. We saw a sign for a hotel in some out of the way town, so we followed it, and spent two lovely hours traversing the French countryside looking for this mystery hotel. It is indescribable just how pastoral 300 year old towns and waving fields of wheat are on a warm summer afternoon (ok hella hot, it was 30C) in Western France. Eventually we found the hotel, and it was closed! Busiest week in the region and it was closed.

We stopped along the way at this restaurant along a traffic circle a few km shy of Alençon. We had a wonderful dinner of beer and Omelets (I had the "Audi", a ham and cheese omelet, €10) followed by Ice-cream dessert (€6) and espresso (€2).

On to Alençon. We hit town, and I see a sign for a Hotel Mercure. These are a good chain of very serviceable hotels in Europe. We whip in, and I asked about a room: No problem, he writes down my last name, hands me a key (no ID, no money, he just hands it to me...) and I have a room for us for the next two nights, €70 a night, and they have a continental breakfast in the morning.

We move our gear in and go get a beer. €4 for 25 cl of beer. What a rip-off. We talk to this Brit who rode his Ducati 751 SuperSport down from the midlands. Nice ride. He gave us some tips on getting to the track, the schedule, and where to go, which would have implications later.

Race Day

Next morning, we get some chow, and headed off at 1000 to catch the Historic races. The chance to watch a bunch of 50s through 70s vintage cars (including Pink Floyd's Nick Mason in his Ferrari 512 as well as a slew of GT40s and other hot rides) had me salivating. However, it was not to be. Yesterdays traffic of an hour to cover 80 km now turned into a crawl that lasted rom 1000 until 1300 by the time we parked. Missed the historics, missed the vintage car show.

It was raining, but that luckily quit by the time the race was to start, and the track cleared and was dry. However, it was very humid and rapidly climbing to 30C. after parking, we went in, and started looking for places to watch the race. We entered the track between the Porsche and Ford curves, and found some nice hills to stand on. We started walking the track clockwise, and worked our way to the grandstands along the start-finish line for the start of the race. That rocked. The start is an elaborate process. The cars start out parked along the wall at a 45 degree angle, like in old, but they get wheeled out to the grid like most any other races. The cars went out for some reconnaissance laps, then regridded. Two would start from the pit lane, but 47 got to the track in good shape.

The race was a typical European drop the flag and take off from a standing start. Leaning on the wall between two concrete canyons as more than 20,000 horsepower went thundering by was simply amazing.

In a flash they were gone, all got a good clean first lap. It was over 3 minutes of empty track before the two lead Bentleys came whispering around the track. At around 3'35" per lap, the prototypes clearly out paced the rest of the field, while the GTS cars were doing 3'50" and the GTs were down in the weeds at 4'10". They were eerily silent, in fact possibly the quietest cars on the track. The Audis came next, popping on the upshifts like at Texas World last year.

A word on sound:

The LOUDEST: Anything with a Judd V10: 2 of the Domes, and one Courage were equipped with this 4 litre V10 spinning over 10,000 rpm. An evolution of the Honda F1 motor of years past, this thing was LOUD.

The most annoying piercing keening wail: The V8 ferrari Modenas in GT, followed by the V12 Maranellos. Really loud, ice pick in the forehead sort of sound.

The coolest sound: The "Elan" (Ford) V8s in the Panoz and Riley& Scott, closely followed by the Corvettes and the Spyker, which were also V-8 powered cars. The Mercedes V8 in the Pagani was cool for the hour or so the car lasted until the gearbox failed...

As the race started to settle in we began a gradual clockwise rotation around the track, moving to several points on the course. At the Dunlop curves we saw our first accident as a prototype spun into the kitty litter. He got the motor going, but could not get out of the gravel w/o the help of the marshalls, but eventually got the traction and got on the track again.

We went over the Dunlop bridge. That was awesome, as the thunder of the passing cars shook the floorboards of the bridge. We hit the infield and continued our progress through the general admission areas. We'd stop at each location for a few laps and watch the cars scream by, snap some photos and then move on.

By the time we made it up to Tertre Rouge, we found we had run out of spectating areas. There are no spectator areas along the Mulsanne, unless you are invited to the Playstation park at the Playstation Chicane. We were not. So we worked our way back into the infield.

It seemed like a great time to ride the famous ferris wheel. We got to the top just in time to have the first full course yellow. So that was kind of a bust, but still cool to see what was out there. Nice view. Got a great overlook of the "kiddie kart" race where they took little baby copies of Ferrari 250 LMs around a course at about 5 mph. Hasn't changed since Steve McQueen was there in '70.

As the afternoon turned into night, we watched and listened. The important thing about Le Mans is that it is not a race per se, it is an event. In a conventional NASCAR or F1 or even Sports Car race, you watch your favorite car run against its competitors and hope they make it to the flag first. Its neatly packaged in a short time frame, and most of the track can be visible (though not always, Monaco and Nurburgring come to mind) from the grandstands. After 2-3 hours its all over, the champagne is sprayed and life goes on. Its a sport.

At Le Mans after 2-3 hours, you haven't even seen driver changes. If you sit in one place and wait for your favorite car to come by, you are missing the point. This is not just a race, its an event. No one spends the whole 24 sitting at the rail waiting to cheer their favorite as they whip by at 3.5 minute intervals. You go see the rest of humanity who came there to socialize, eat, drink, and party. People meet, socialize, and talk about racing. There were over 70,000 fans just from the UK alone who came to France to see the race. You soak up the atmosphere and have a great time.

This is a race often won by laps and miles, not fractions of a second. With rare exceptions there are not close battles, just long pulls between the pit stops, avoiding traffic and staying off the walls and out of the gravel for 8.5 miles. The slowest corners are 100 kph and the fastest straights are 300 kph plus. Repeat three hundred and seventy five times. In the dark. In the rain. In the blinding rising sun reflecting through your oil and bugstained windscreen. Keep it together, keep it between the foglines, and still turn a good lap, try to stay within a second of so of your last lap, traffic allowing. Don't balk faster cars, make smooth passes on slower ones. 3200 miles later, you and your team are either there or you are not. Just making the invitation list to the Le Mans race is an honor, and being able to keep the car alive for a full day is beyond the abilities of most. 49 started this race, but only 30 finished.

By evening we had grabbed some grub at the track and were working our way around the infield to go see the Jamiroquai concert. Excellent disco-funk. JT from Jamiroquai is well known for his love of fast cars, so this was to be a special concert. It was supposed to start at 2200, but we started heading over around 2230. It was in an area past the pits in the infield near Maison Blanche. As we neared, there was a massive queue of people and no music to be heard. I could see the stage, and nothing was going on that I could see, so we turned back.

A Pause That refreshes.

Around midnight, we were tuckered out from the heat, the sun and the walking, so we started back toward the car. You need sleep, no matter how dedicated to the racing you are. Camping in the park is an answer, if you can take the noise. I wanted more comfort, and frankly was punch drunk from the incessant noise of 600 horsepower cars rocketing by 10 or 100 feet away. We headed to the car park wit h the intent to head back to Alençon and catch 6 hours sleep and be back. An hour later, we had moved 500 m towards the exit. Screw this I said, and turned around on the little road we were on. I had no idea where the hell I was going, but it was better than sitting in traffic listening to race updates on 91.2 FM Radio Le Mans (in English). I hauled *** and in 15 minutes or so I was in the little village of Arnage. Through another traffic circle, and I was on the highway towards ZI Sud. I picked up the highway to Alençon and we were back and in bed (after downloading the pictures to empty my CF cards) by 3 in the morning. How cool. Serendipity, I pieced this together with what the Brit from our hotel (Biker Boy Phil) had told us and devised a plan for the next day's fun.

Up the next day, we decided to forgo the grandstands, infield and park area, and return to Arnage instead. There is a small viewing area there between Indianapolis and Arnage, which turned out to be a great place to watch the race wind down. There is also another area in the town of Mulsanne, but we didn't go, there was not time.

3 hours of racing to go, I spent time with my Canon S230 Elph shooting movies of the cars going by. It will film 3 minutes at a whack, which is almost a full lap for the leaders.

As the race closed, there was one major battle, with the Courage-Judd chasing the Panoz-Elan number 11 (12 retired apparently after going into the wall around 2200) by a matter of a few seconds. Both cars pitted and rejoined the track in the same positions and interval. By luck, I was calling my dad on the phone when the Courage driver got it wrong in Arnage and spun it. Arnage corner is part of a public road, and in fact there is a steel catch wall that closes the public road during the race. Losing it at Arnage means no kitty litter to save you, just pavement and a wall. The driver (local hero Stéphane Grégorie) kept it off the wall, got going fine, but by then all he could do is tuck in and circulate to the end. The number 16 Dome also lost it coming out of Indianapolis , I could only see the dust cloud until it came out of the kitty litter, with much of the rear bodywork destroyed. it limped to the pits and retired.

To noone's surprise, at 1600 local, the Bentley boys won. They had the team, the drivers and most of all the money to win. This was the 80th anniversary of the Le Mans race, and the 71st running (breaks for war and flying Mercedes and all) Bentley was there in the beginning, so it is fitting that they are here now. Good on them.

Audi's privateers made a good showing, but the clockwork precision of the factory teams was not there. Congrats to Champion and Goh for fielding the two that finished 3-4, and bad luck to the Audisport UK team, who lost their engine at 0730.

By positioning ourselves at Arnage instead of the parking lot, I didn't lose 3 hours of my life like on Saturday. Next time I go back I will remember this, and park at Arnage and bring a bicycle to cover the rest of the track. I can then up my average of 12 hours or so of racing, 6 hours sleep and 6 hours of driving to 16 racing, 6 sleep and 2 driving. Still 12 hours of fun was all that I could stand. It was amazing and I truly loved each minute of it, heat and sweat and all.

Ringing ears, adrenaline and sweat in our eyes, we took off for the car. In a matter of 15 minutes we had cleared traffic, and were in Paris by 1800. A short stop at a rest stop for food and fuel, and we were off. We pinned the needle on 160 kph (100 mph for those of you playing the home version) and crossed France rapidly. Rather than coming back by way of Saarbrucken, we went south through Strasbourg and thence to Stuttgart. Got up to 200 kph for a bit before traffic reigned us in. Total drive time: 7.5 hours.

That's Le Mans. I have a lot of photos and short clips to sort through, but that will take time.

Enjoy!

Sharon

corey and I would like to try to see that in person some year.

RangeR BoB

I would try and plan it a bit better if I were going again, but we lucked out and had a good time.

Small Town Terrorist

Thanks for the write-up. Enjoyed it.

turboneticsman

I know that's what it is for the street; it's called the C12s as in 12 cylinders (where it does 0-100mph under 7!). Maybe they changed it for racing?