[jyl]

Just a quick report on my trip to Le Mans.

Turns out a friend/ex-colleague was in Paris on business, so we had him and another friend/ex-colleague over for dinner in the apartment. 3 guys, 4 empty bottle of wine, they walked back to their hotel at 2AM - ever notice its hard to get a taxi late at night in Paris? So the next morning, he and I picked up the rental car and headed off to Le Mans, rather hung-over.

So hung-over that we forgot to bring any maps. But he was able to navigate us the whole way with his Blackberry's Google Maps. Technology is cool.

He'd never been to a race before, so he was very excited. It was fun to watch him, looking at everything with fresh eyes. Fortunate, since during the time he was there, the racing was not very good. It was alternating between patchy sun and heavy rain, so the cars were skidding, spinning, and crashing a lot, and I think the first 4 hours of the race were at least 1/3 under the yellow. I was more interested in trying to stay dry.

The Village area seemed more crowded than ten years ago, and the tickets were certainly more expensive. 61 euros! We saved money by parking illegally on the soft shoulder on what would qualify as a highway in the USA. I like the pragmatic French attitude toward such things - its a big crowd, so if you're in a safe spot, they don't bother you. With no Porsches outside of GT, I wasn't all that interested in the outcome, though the French were rooting for the Peugeots.

My friend took the train back to Paris at 2130 and I had a quick dinner, took some night photos of the cathedral, had a welcome snooze, and drove back to the race. It was dark by now. I drove to the Virage Arnage, parked down a side lane, and watched some of the night racing. I believe the Audis were solidly in control at this point. On the spectator side of the track, it was a serious mudfest.

I slept in the car. Unfortunately, the Peugeot 307 station wagon does not have a flat cargo floor with the rear seats folded. Next to being dog slow, this was its major flaw. My example may have had something wrong with it, it wouldn't exceed 120 km/h flat out, the engine sounded a bit sick, and some engine warning light that I couldn't fully decipher was lit up. So I hunkered down in the back seat, travel blanket over my head as people whooped and honked outside and race engines howled at a not-to-grear distance. Later I woke up and noticed it was 8 deg C. Which is kind of cold, when you're wet, motionless, and in a tin box. Well, it was no worse than flying a redeye.

Sunday morning I got up with the dawn, tried to unfreeze my joints, and drove off in search of the Mulsanne Straight. I eventually found a place near the track, at a campground a little before the Muslanne Curve. Met a nice chow puppy, who wasn't liking the noise.

The lead Audi had crashed out, and the last remaining Audi was #1, the two Peugeots were #2 and #3. That's the last I know of the race standings, this was around 10AM local time.

Then it was time to leave. I stopped in Chartres to see the cathdral, got back to Paris without incident, and arrived at the car rental place near Bastille. They noticed my right front tire was flat and advised me to return the car at the nearest train station instead. Puzzling, but okay. Turns out at that location you just leave the car in a numbered spot and hand over the keys, no-one inspects your car for damage. So whether the Bastille office guys were trying to save me a charge for flatting the tire (which I wouldn't have paid) or simply trying to save themselves the hassle of replacing the tire, it was fine with me.