Part II of Aaron's 1997 LeMans trip

From: Aaron Heimke
To: Travels with TrackSchedule.com - http://www.trackschedule.com

After a longer delay than I planned, here is Part II:

You will remember that we have arrived at the track, gotten the car into the campground, and are all setup. Thursday practice is underway, and we can hear the cars from the campground.

Before we head over to the track, let's look around the campground a little bit. The campground is in the infield, behind the main grandstands. Right next to our spot is a berm that surrounds the dirt track that is part of the ACO club complex. Between us and the main stands, there is also a small paved road course that hosts various club races, DEs, etc. throughout the year.

The camp ground is a bit primitive, but adequate. (My version of adequate may not match yours. Usually, when I go "camping" it is with my rich Uncle Sam. I often sleep on top of a M1A1 Abrams Main Battle tank in whatever weather is occurring at the time. Having an actual tent with an air mattress is pretty luxurious by my standards.) The campground is grass, with gravel roads. Lots of trees keep things fairly shady and comfortable. There are 3 latrine buildings. They have male and female bathroom areas with toilets and sinks. There are also shower areas. (This is also more than I am used to, since I have often gone 2-3 weeks with no real showers in the service of our nation.) They are kept pretty clean by attendants, and when you go in for showers, etc.., bring change to pay the mandatory "tip." These facilities are perfectly acceptable, in my opinion. There were lines in the mornings, but by waiting until later in the day, you can avoid the lines. There was also a little store that got fresh baked goods every morning. The croissants are better than any I have ever had outside of France. Get up early to get your stuff though, because they sell out pretty quickly. This campground is filled mostly with Brits, and I saw lots of very expensive cars. It is a bit strange to see a nice, later model Porsche Turbo or Ferrari something or another next to a tent in a campground. I was most envious of a guy and his 6 or 7 year old son who had driven to the race in his Carrera. They had a small 2 man tent and some basic camping gear. Just enough to live on. They looked to be having a grand time!

There is at least one other campground that I know of. It is over near the Maison Blanc, and was primarily filled with large motor homes. It is nice groomed grass and paved roads. More ritzy, but surely more expensive. I was able to tag along with Jerry and the rest of the PCA crowd, sharing the cost of the spot we had 6 or 8 ways. I think my portion was $20 or 30. In my opinion, this is the way to really experience LeMans. Once you park the car, you just walk everywhere. It is very convenient. I could come and go whenever, without messing with the car. If I went back to the campground, and someone had a good place to go or something good to do, I could just turn around and head right out. If I were in a hotel somewhere, it would be very hard to be as flexible. Keep in mind that LeMans is a big party atmosphere, and only very diehard fans will constantly watch the race. Having a base of operations and a safe place to keep things made it great. If I wanted to watch a couple of hours of the race, I could grab my folding chair and head out. Then, if I wanted to go to the village (More on this later), I could go drop off the chair and then head back without having to keep lugging the chair around. At our spot, we could see one of the "Jumbo-Tron" TV screens, so if we happened to be in our campground when something exciting happened, we would hear it on Radio LeMans and see it on the screen. I have heard they have added even more of these screens, which will increase the areas you can see then from. Another point: Since LeMans is a big party atmosphere, alcohol is consumed. It was great not to have to worry about driving to a hotel. I plan to camp again for 2000, and I think I can get a tent, a mattress, a cooker, and some munchies in an air freight container, which I will check onto the airplane. Once I hit Paris, I will get down to the track and get linked up with the PCA folks (I hope) again.

OK, enough logistics. Thursday is a practice day, and the track is filled with lots of cars. If I remember right, you don't need tickets for the practice day. Even if you do, they are cheap. The hot tip is to buy the weekend general admission ticket. You get a discount if you join the ACO at the same time. Again, in the interest of economy, I didn't buy reserved seating. There is enough open areas in front of the stands opposite the pits that you can squeeze in, even at the start and finish. Once the race is underway, there is plenty of room to bring a folding chair and set up for a good long stay. The amount of time spent actually sitting in the reserved seats don't seem to make them a very good buy. If any of them would be worth it, it MIGHT be the ones above the pits. I went up there on Friday, just to look around. Nice seats in the shade with a good view, but you can't really see into the pits because of the skyboxes, which are right above the pits. Everyone recommended against buying these reserved seats, and I didn't miss having them at all. It is much more fun to move from place to place around the track. You get to see the cars doing many more things.

On Thursday, the cars practice most of the day until around dinner time. Everyone takes a break, and gets ready for night practice. Sunset comes about 10 PM, and then there is a few hours of night practice. It is really cool to see the cars in the dark. They have various ways to show their numbers at night, ranging from strategic spotlighting to really cool neon numbers in the side windows. The Porsche GT2s and GT3s looked the best, since these neon lights fit nicely in the quarter windows. Brake discs glow, turbos shoot fire and the headlights bore holes in the night. Tres Cool!

Friday dawns crisp, clear and silent. Friday is the final prep day and tension starts to build. The pits are open, and you can walk around among the transporters and watch everyone work on the cars from 10 feet away. The way these teams are organized is incredible! In my life with Uncle Sam's Traveling Circus, it was my job to organize lots of men and equipment, and transport them across great distances to accomplish a specific task. These guys were doing pretty much the same thing, but they take the organization and planning to a high science. I spent lots of time looking and watching, and these guys have got it down. I'd love to be a team manger for one of these slick operations!

After cruising the pits from one end to the other, front and back, we headed over to the museum. This is a very good museum that covers the entire history of the LeMans race, plus a large amount of information about the French automobile industry. (I still don't understand why French cars are so ugly! ;-)) We spent a couple of hours in the museum. There was a bus tour of the track available, but it was kind of pricey, so we skipped that. We went looking around the vendor areas along the back side of the old grandstands. I literally bumped into that famous Porsche fan Jerry Seinfeld in the crowd. I am not the type who would walk 10 feet to ask a celebrity for an autograph, so it didn't really click who it was. One of the guys I was with recognized him, and wanted to get his autograph. I hung back, and he went to bug him. Jerry nicely, but firmly, declined, and we moved on. If I had some tickets to the PCA BBQ, I might have invited him over. We saw him a couple more times in various parts of the track during the whole weekend. He was obviously just there to have a good time and watch the race.

We spent the rest of the day walking around the track scouting good viewing spots for the race. We checked out the carnival (same as anywhere else in the world) and the village. The village has lots of shops and stands. The famous Grand Marinier crepe stand is here. You have not really been to LeMans unless you have a Grand Marinier crepe! After getting our crepe, we move on through the village. All of the major vendors (tire, oil, etc.) are there, as well as several of the specialty manufacturers. Nissan and Porsche had their GT1 street cars there, and Panoz also had a stand. There were 3 or 4 sports cars from companies I never heard of - essentially glorified kit cars. You can also get stuff from all of the race teams and manufacturers. Porsche was there with the full line of goodies and souvenirs. Lots of neat stuff in the village. I made several visits during the weekend.

Whew, it has been a long day with lots of walking. Time to head back to help get set up for the PCA Germany Region BlowOut BBQ. In years prior to 1997, this was a big event with lots of people. Jerry and the rest of the PCA officers decided to tone it down a little because of the logistics of getting everything to France. For 1997, the big event, Porsche Clubwise, was Porsche Club Great Britain's bash. They had it catered, and it was nice (I was a traitor and snuck over for a short while) but the crowd was a bit snooty. Back to the PCA party.

We stayed up late eating and drinking and talking too much, and I was very glad that I only had to travel 25 feet to my bed!

Good Night, see you in the morning.

Saturday is Race Day!

Stay tuned for Part III ....

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