Le Mans – Need I say more!

I had 2 ambitions this year, to work at Le Mans and the British Grand Prix. Up until about 3 weeks ago it was looking as though I would fulfil neither. WTCC, Dakar, LMS and a few other odds and sod had filled most weekends but not those.

Having spent my first full year in the Le Mans Series paddock this cheesed me off even further. Literally every single English journalist had a role at Le Mans, Eurosport had a team of 6 English Speakers, Radio Le Mans had 8. The world feed had 2 in the form of David Addison and Christopher Tate and then there were the plethora of manufacturer work looking after corporate guest (Audi had 3 hospitality areas!). Even the support races had their own specific commentators for their world feed yet 3 weeks before Le Mans I has somehow missed the boat. The job I had been holding out for was a Eurosport magazine show with Johnny Herbert called 24 Minutes. Some of the producers (and much of the public) felt the 2010 presenter wasn’t up to scratch, Knowledge of Le Mans and control of a live show was massively important and lacking. I had never seen a show as I was out in Marrakech last year but I was able to catch some of the 2011 shows thinking, I should be doing that! My God – what a mess!

Thanks to a particularly lovely Marketing and Booking Manager at Speed Chills Camping I was offered the chance to go. Me and a mate would take my Nissan down to the campsite and film what it was like to live Le Mans. Having caught qualifying on TV on Thursday we go the fever to head to Le Mans early on Friday. The road trip is an important part of the Le Mans experience, and it really is an experience. You come across convoys of Classic beauties cruising and supercars speeding down to the common destination. For us we saw most of this from the side of the road! My 350z deciding we were still half full of fuel when actually we were totally empty with 40kms to the nearest station. Such is the Le Mans spirit, lots of cars stopped as we flagged them down to see who carried spare fuel. No-one sadly so eventually a very bored taxi driver sorted us out and we were soon in Le Mans.

The town itself doesn’t seem to embrace the event quite as much as you would expect, or how perhaps Daytona does for the 500, the buzz comes from the campsites. Ours was close to the Porsche curves and was a fenced off private area, only members allowed in. I figured we were being given a piece of grass but included in the Speed Chills package was exclusive showers and toilets, impeccably cleaned and a well stocked bar area which had live bands playing and TV showing all the Eurosport action. Amazing! Food was supplied and while the price was cheap, I've never experienced such a tiny bacon butty! You feel slightly ungrateful bringing your own food and BBQ when there is a perfect facilitated kitchen. For sure the beer flowed freely leading me to pass out in my car one evening with the ignition on. Cue another act of kindness from a Speed Chills resident to get us bump started. I was happy to see he was doing the rounds on Monday, known for his jumpleads in the Speed Chills community!

You certainly get two types of fan at Le Mans: Those that will sit at Arnage until sunrise with a camping seat and sleeping bag and the others that head to Arnage village to drink beer when the sun goes down. With the Eurosport TV on in Speed Chills, I wonder how many actually saw a car on track?

My first visit 5 years ago I also camped with mates and religiously had Radio Le Mans throughout the weekend. It was mega, telling us everything we need to know during the sessions but then providing the theme tunes to our Campsite party in the evening. Sadly the second part seems to have now gone, the Friday evening Campsite tour was replaced with a looped sequence of interviews with Alex Wurz, Oli Turvey, Andrew Kirkuldy Martin Whitmarsh and Ron Dennis. Great informative chats, but the answers weren’t a surprise second time over.

It was only a 3 day weekend but by Monday myself and Cameraman Paul were shattered, we leisurely drove the ‘Route National’ back to Calais and even without going over 130km/h all journey we still manage to get caught speeding with a ticket written once we had parket claiming we hit 156km/h. Funny that the next 4 cars pulled in (all Brits in nice cars) were also done for that exactly same speed. Sadly with the Gendarmerie holding my passport and drivers license there was no way of escaping the €90 euro fine.

It rounded off a hugely enjoyable and eventful weekend, if slightly frustrating weekend. Next year I will be working, somewhere!