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With LeMans just a few days away, thought it would be interesting to hear people's best LeMans stories from attending the greatest Sports Car race on the planet. I know we have a bunch of racers that have competed in it (or are this year??) so would love to hear them too!
I'll start.
2016. It was my wife and my gift to ourselves for our 25th wedding anniversary. Spent a few days in Paris, then headed to LeMans a week before the race for Scrutineering. If you haven't been, you need to go the week in advance and take this in - very fascinating. Right in the middle of downtown LeMans. We ended up staying at a couple's house that we "met" through a contact here on Rennlist! I had asked if there was anyone that knew of a good place to stay, and Samuel (928cs) mentioned that a friend of his might be interested in renting out a room. So...we connected with Mallory, made a deal, and had a place to stay! I had never met, or even talked to Mallory before we showed up at his house! He and his wife were awesome hosts - and they lived right by a tram station so we could tram into the track every day!! And to top it off...Mallory taught cooking at a local culinary school...so we ate quite well all week - he kept insisting he make us dinner even when we got back to the house at 11pm...
The days between Scrutineering and track activities gave us time to go to Normandy beach, visit a few wineries and castles, explore LeMans area, etc.
Onto the race. Through our connection with Kevin Buckler at TRG, we were guests of Aston Martin Racing and afforded all the luxuries of the AMR Hospitality right at the braking zone to the Ford Chicanes, the Pit suites right over the AMR pit/garages, garage access, being ferried around in golf carts by AMR people all weekend....and unlimited food and beverages. Yes...we were extremely spoiled on our first visit to LeSarthe... and Yes...we ate and drank EXTREMELY well while in France!! If you remember, 2016 was the year the Toyota stopped on the front straight with one lap to go, giving Porsche it's second overall win in a row. That happened right in front of us as we were sitting in the pit suite.
What we realized was that the entire track and race is extremely overwhelming on your first visit. You want to watch the race, but you want to explore everything and see from every angle. Better planning for trips to Arnage and the Porsche curves would have saved us time. Never did get to Mulsanne...
So much more to say, but I'll let pictures do the talking...
On the theme of AMR, i was at the 2013 race as a guest of Paul Dalla Lana, a driver in the #98.
It was an unforgettable experience of highs and lows, the low being Alan Simonsen's crash and death on the slippery opening lap.
Being with AMR during such a sad horrific time has left a mark.
I contributed this article to PCA:
My first trip to the 24 hours of Le Mans was in 2005 as part of a Rennlist 993 Forum "Hey Wait For Me Racing" contingent. After I returned I wrote this article for my local PCA Region's monthly magazine. Hope you enjoy it. It certainly brings back my memories of that "first time."
06-13-2018, 03:50 PM
LeMans 24 - 2018: Tell us your LeMans Story
