93 FireHawk 968

I'm planning to attend LeMan in 2014 with my wife and a couple of friends. Starting the fact finding now and welcome any and all feedback regarding how best to see the race, where to stay, any secrets on navigating the race, are the tour groups worth the extra money?

I've been to Paris a few times and plan to stay there a day or 2 and head south to the Loire Valley. Thinking of heading further south following the race to enjoy the southern coast of France.

I have read some of the similar threads on RL.

Thanks in advance for the feedback.

K964

No skirts allowed!!!




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OCturbo

I went to 24 hrs le mans in 2011. It was a great experience. I drove down from Paris by myself (my family stayed in Paris while I broke away for the weekend), which was a pretty easy trip (around 2.5 hrs I think). But, when you get to the track it's a different story. I arrived fri afternoon. There were hundreds of drunk fans shooting beer guns into cars and asking cars to peel out on the access road to the track. I was able to park my car and walk and find my father who was with corvette racing hospitality (located by the corvette corner)- it was like finding a needle in a haystack, but I got lucky and had studied the track map quite a bit before. I was then hooked up with the tour who had a coach that would take us to and from the track and hotel that was around 45 min away. All was smooth and hassle free from there on and it was cool since corvette won gt pro that year.
I don't think it would be easy for an american who doesn't know the area or speak french, just to go there without being on a tour. Unless, you are going to camp, that would be possible. Now that I know the area, next time I will book a hotel/car and be fine with it.
As far as other areas in France, my favorite is Biarritz, but I may be partial since I surf!

Steve113

I went in 2012 with some buddies it was amazing. Find out info on ACO - Automobile Club the have great viewing spots around the track well worth the 70 annual fee

NaroEscape

Wife and I are planning to go in 2014 too. I was told once to hook up with the Porsche Club of Great Britain. May start looking at that route?
Firehawk - lets keep this thread open and share information as it becomes availalbe. I had started one about 6 months ago, but not much transpired with it.

AtlJimK

Went in 2011 with my brother. Rented a Fiat Panda @ CDG and drove out on Wednesday camped near the Porsche Curves through the race. Hung out at all the good spots, went into Arnage. Awesome experience! Then drove to Germany to run the ring afterward. Going again 2014 too...

Photos from the trip

zip465

Heading over in '14 as well. I'm very interested in hearing others experiences as well

PaulGeudon

I've been every year since 1999. I've stayed in the most disgusting campsites (in the early days) and steadily improved and honed the trip over the years. Now, it's fabulous - we stay in a chateau, have hospitality at the circuit and go to La Chartre on the Friday. You really do NOT want to be at the circuit on 'Frantic Friday' - you're right saying it's full of pissed-up idiots with water pistols. We also take a 7-seater SUV that acts as shuttle between the chateau and circuit if needed.

I started a small club back in 2009 and this year we are going in a convoy that includes 4 Astons, 2 Ferraris (including an F40), an Audi V10 R8 Spyder, one Lambo Gallardo and my Porsche Spyder. Yep, just the one Porsche. Normally we have around 4 though. The pic enclosed shows the chateau we are in this year and we will have Aston Martin Racing Hospitality. I've done Aston Hospitality every year since 2006 except last year when we did Audi.

As a guide, Aston Hospitality costs £1,300. Audi hospitality cost £1,800. Sounds expensive, but it's superb - amazing food, purpose built arenas with grandstands, complimentary drinks all weekend including champagne, goodie bags, tours out to Indianapolis and Mulsanne, tours of the pit garage during the race, pit suite above the garage and the big party on Friday evening with the team. Party after the race too.

The Porsche Hospitality next year should be around the same as Aston Martin's. That's what we'll be doing in 2014.

For sleeping, you can book a campsite for just £150 or so. A gated campsite with better showers will cost around £350. A chateau like ours costs around £1,300 for a double or twin room with breakfast for 5 days.

Plenty of options, but once you've been, you'll want to go every year.

I'm happy to offer any advice to those wanting it.

wagongotya

recommend booking before the race ends this year if you want a prime hotel/condo/flat in town. day after the event tends to be when people realize they screwed up and missed out

93 FireHawk 968

Thanks for the feedback to date.

Paul, can you suggest where to stay? I'm not a fan of camping and willing to pay for a high quality experience. Are there specific links to either the Aston or Porsche hospitality? I plan to book right after this years race.

My993C2

Awesome pics of your trip.

PaulGeudon

You'll find that the hospitality will not be available until end of the year or even early 2014. The chateau's are usually released around October time. If the numbers I've quoted sound okay, you'll be welcome to come with us? We have one chap, another Rennlister (Sqweak), coming this year and next year... I'll be booking our chateau again if it's any good - we'll get first refusal.

If you DM me your email I can send through blurb from Aston for 2013. Porsche are sending theirs through later in the year. I'm doing Goodwood Festival Of Speed with Porsche, so I'll discuss it further then.

It's going to be a brilliant year, even more so since seeing this yesterday...

DrJupeman

I'm going in 2014, as well, likely with the whole family. Go Porsche! It sounds like we need a Rennlist meet-up...

BlackRain

I'm thinking about going next year, been there twice. Chateau's are the place to stay in the area.

http://www.lemans.org/en/

I will be at Goodwood FoS again this year as well.

dpressley

I went 2012 with hubby, son, & our other car buddy. It was a bucket list item of mine and I planned as if I would never make it back. We flew into Paris, took TGV direct from the train station at CDG to Le Mans, hopped on the tram to the track all on Thurs. Did the same thing back to Paris on Sun evening and stayed for another week.

I booked our air on my own. I booked lodging at an "on site FlexHotel" through the UK group "Travel Destinations UK" because I didn't want to miss ONE MINUTE at the track. They are also a licensed ticket seller, so it was a bit of a one-stop-shop. We agreed it was kinda expensive, but well worth it. Well, for us it was expensive.... didn't rent a chateau ;-) Helen Burman at Travel Destinations was just terrific when it came to us booking only partial packages (coming from US instead of UK).

It would have been nice to have had a rental car in order to get to other viewing areas around the track, but Helen saw to it that we got a ride to Mulsanne in her own rental car! There is a shuttle bus system, but the lines are LONG... at Mulsanne the line was nearly 1km long!!! We walked from there to Arnage instead (at 1:30am). It took 45 mins, but was a great adventure and much faster than if we had waited for the shuttle. Getting the shuttle back to the front gate was a wait (at 3am), but it generated a great story so it was well worth it ;-)

We bought grandstand tickets from suggestions made on the forum in the past, but we lucked out with weather and it wasn't really necessary. I opted not to tour the museum; we are lucky to have attended several Monterey Historics, figured I'd seen many of those cars rolling, so I passed. Driver's parade was fun. Getting to and from town is really easy with the tram, but like I said, we stayed at the track so we didn't do it often. If we had stayed for a few more days, we would have definitely gone to town more.

The masses of people walking onto the track at the end of the race is surreal!

It was kinda nice to still be on PDT (or somewhere in between) and not adjusted to local time - made it a little easier to stay up weird hours during the race.

I know of a great little hotel in the Montparnasse area that was recommended to us by a previous race team member and we loved it.

I'm sure I've missed a million details, so if there's something else you are curious about from our trip, feel free to ask.