Club Arnage

As most of you know it has been a real hassle this year to get preferred tickets. There is an agency in Holland (Ticket & Travel) who sells tickets for a reasonable price, for example: this year's Maison Blanche tickets were sold for €90,- which is only slightly above face value, and without the obligation to buy GAs and tickets you never use anyway. Both Knetter and I have been working on this, and as it is the first day after free practise at Le Mans, we are allowed to order tickets again for the following year.

With all this in mind, I rang the travel agency today and ordered 80 Maison Blanche tickets. It is not known to the agency if they can get this amount off the ACO, but they will let me know as soon as they get the word from France. Of course, the idea behind this is we can have a bulk of tickets, and we can have some sort of CA/DfH village at Maison Blanche next year. The only downer on this, is the tickets will have to be paid for by November.

Please do not order tickets with me yet. I do not know if the agency can get this amount off especially for us - and if they do, I want to wait untill we're back from this year's edition anyway. I will let you know as soon as I get that phone call.

Fingers crossed everyone!! :D Well, those who'd like to be on Maison Blanche...

Its good when you have a nice lead come in your direction. Its something we have had on the wish list for a couple of years now. I've got my balls crossed for this to evolve.

excellent :D

That's 10% of Maison Blanche  :o

Very ambitious but I hope you pull it off, desperate times call for desperate measures.

Hope it works out for you Paddy, we shall be staying home and watching on the telly next year  ;D

That's sad to hear, Anita :(

i'll need to confirm with melans but i'm sure that we'll be back next year and will need at least a couple of tickets  ;D

I'll have 2 off you Paddy, too much riff raff on Bleu Sud this year!
 S

No orders yet, we will open a topic later after we get back. The situation they told me with the agents is that they order their tickets in august, that is after we put in our requests with the ACO, however, the agents still get first pick allocations. I asked him for 60 for next year, but Paddy did not think it was enough. Fingers crossed. By the way, still go forward putting in your requests with the ACO, as a precaution if this falls through.

great , hope it comes off.

Sounds like a cracking idea. Camp CA would be an amazing place  ;D

I think you mean Camp DFH /CA

>Martini...

Sounds even better  ;D

We're just as much CA member as DfH member Martini, so camp CA does cover it quite well. :)

Allthough I think the DfH group is one of the biggest ones on CA. ;D

Ahem  ;D

Biggest one we've had was in '06: 42 people. But then again, Turn 10 and Turn 1 from Sebring were represented in there too.

Oh well, we're all friends. Who cares which belongs where, as long as we have fun ;D

I thought we were all honourary Dutch any way  ;D

Exactly, we can't fathom out who, where or what we are after the first couple of days  ;D

I said 'one of the biggest' not 'the biggest' Russell. ;D

And and off course everybody is a honourary Dutchman anyway, especially this year with the hats and shirts we're bringing. ;D

Maison Blanche will become Little Holland on Friday for sure  :D

Lets see how our neighbours feel about that. ;D

Without the water I hope!

Would be nice to have some ditches surrounding us though! (http://forum.drinkingforholland.com/images/smiles/icon_lol.gif)

I'm sure you'll find one, even if there aren't any!!  ;D

whahaha

Until reading this thread I have never given a thought to how many "members" we have camping with F-Troop at Sebring.....I will have to try and do a head count now. 

Is there any further news on this plan yet???

Time to start thinking about next year!!

Paddy is occupied otherwise at the moment, I'll see if I can get in touch with him on this.

For previously mentioned reasons, IMO Maison Blanch is finished as a viable campsite and Team Zarse probably won't be going back there unless something exceptional happens.

Its going to be over priced i think. The SPS crew wont be there........... Its Blue Nord or someother site from now..... ( going for houx annexe - but its a building site ? )

*lurking to see responses*

Hi Landman,
                You can't Lurk and Post at the same time ::)
Now I am going back to lurking to see what happens  ;D
Canada Phil

Right pair of lurkers...

Spoke to Paddy about it; he didn't hear from the agency yet, he's gonna give them a call.

We have 15 tickets pre booked for MB next year, but if Paddy secures his we may sell them on and join the goup. I will keep an eye on this thread.

Its only 9 months till we all party again.... and I still need a new Piano >:D

Bring it on.

(http://farm1.static.flickr.com/15/20509421_dcc9c80d80.jpg?v=0)

I concur. Before I damaged myself, I lit a bonfire with a tea light, a plastic bottle of petrol, and an air rifle.

Light the tea light, put the (sealed) bottle of petrol close to it, retreat and shoot the bottle with the air rifle.

Whoomph

 ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? ??? ???

I'd never wish that on anyone tbh. Genuinely unfunny.  :(

Peter

When did this happen? I don't recall it, and I'm sure it's not due to severe inebriation, if I did I'm frankly amazed you never mentioned it to me at the time, or shortly after our return.

Rgds

Nick

Oooops!

>Martini...LB

Not Oooops more like bloody hell.... sounds serious.

BTW do not camp next to me...

>Martini...LB

Saab '59 wanted ... apply within

I rather think that if I am able to return next year to LM it will be home again in whatever is left of our own leafy pastures...

But at present this is looking fairly unlikely

 :-\

Was that Nick misbehaving Sundaynight, damn pyromaniac  :o

Ahrlright, everybody stay calm...

(http://m.gmgrd.co.uk/res/378.$plit/C_71_Articles_122615_BodyWeb_Detail_0_Image.jpg)

What happened and why was this not dealt with either at the time or upon immediate return from LM?  ??? It is not healthy to let this sort of thing linger before giving it a public airing so can we please resolve it forthwith.

On the Sunday night, I’ll freely admit that I was making propane explosions in an empty part of the HA campsite. This basically involved heating small (190gram) butane gas cylinders up until the seal on the can failed, releasing all the butane in one fell swoop, which then ignited in a fireball of about 2 cubic metres, and lasted for a second or so.

I’m going to make a number of assumptions, all of which will skew the results in Peters favour.

The explosions took place no closer than 10 metres to peters marquee, probably more like 15 – 20 metres.

1 mole of butane weighs  58.0grams, and this can liberate up to 425  kilowatts of energy, so the full 190 grams would, given perfect conditions liberate 3.2 x 425 kw or 1360 kilowatts, or for those of us more familiar with 1 bar fires, 1360 of them on, for 1 second.

Now if we assume all the energy released was concentrated into a single point in space, and that /all of it was transmitted by radiation, linearally in all directions, and none of it was absorbed by the medium it passed through (ie. Air), then Peters marquee at 10 metres, can be taken to stand on the border of a sphere 10 metres in diameter, the formula for the surface area of a sphere is 4X pi X the radius of the sphere, all squared, or;-

4 * 3.14 * 10 squared, or 15575 square metres.

So it therefore stands that each square metre of the sphere radius 10 metres felt 1360/15575 watts per square metre, or about 87 watts per square metre, for 1 second.

It is for this reason, and for observations made at the time (ie the marquee didn’t appear to be on fire, scorched, or melted) that I firmly believe that my actions were not to blame for the damage to Peters marquee and / or car.

There was a large bonfure lit by the squad of guys camping behind Peters marquee on one of the evenings, and a sustained heat source would be much more likely to cause the damage to which Peter has referred. However, as i do not know what they were burning, i can't offer any specific energy loadings.

I'm more than happy to bury any hatchet, at any time.

We helped Peter take down his marquee before we lit the bonfire!

FYI - We burnt 1" diameter branches, can't remember what type of trees they were obtained from so good luck with your energy loadings!

And due to the fresh nature of said trees, our fire never got to the large stage!
Piss poor would be more appropriate!

COR!
Impressive stuff.

I hope I never get into an arguement about hot things, with you. ;)

Mal,

We have been 'bounced so many times by the ACO, we'll take 9 off you if they become available.

Rex,

You will always need a new piano, you keep burning them 8)

Back on topic ;)

Just got off the phone with T&T, apparently they can tell me more at the end of November.
Patience seems the favorite game by the ACO again, even with the travel agencies :-\

Cool, thanks for the info Paddy

Got a phone call from the agency this morning, and have just received an official form by fax. Will fill it in and return this morning (duh). Answer to my question what chances are on 80 tickets was "50-50", so I guess there is still some hope left here.

I'm not quite sure yet how we would be tackling the dividing of the tickets, but I guess we'll sort that out in some way.
I hope all of you are still interested in building a CA/DfH camp on Maison Blanche in June though ;)




ps. please understand that if this is on, we will not be able to finance the total order of € 7.500, and will be asking for money as soon as the order is definite.

Not us Paddy  ;D We're planning to stay home, move the TV to the garden for the weekend and have a nice quiet time of it ;D  Just the two of us (and my Dad!)

Count me and Andy in.
Money can be sent as soon as required.

yes , if it happens I want to be part of it. Cheers

Absolutely!

Pikies  ::)

I'm still interested in 6-8.

May also be able to help people out viz a viz payment - ie I'll take GBP off UK CA'ers and transfer euros to you.

Del

Not me! There remains a far corner of Bleu with my name on it!!  Besides, I already have the t-shirt  ;D

Hi Paddy
A definite provisional for me.

>Martini...

i will be around :D

Hummmm .... and just booked 8 HA (I was sure they were building on it after the race this year???) this week - doh!

Should know our plans in the next few weeks. It looks like a short flying visit for the Barrel 'o' Monkeys next year- Fri night to Sunday afternoon. Put us down provisionally for 2.(pref away from Martini's olympic snoring marathon ;D ;D ;D)

I almost fell off my chair... ;D

And who else is going to keep you company when you sit around your tent all day??  ;)

We would be looking for 5 camping tickets, cash waiting!!

We don't have to camp next to you Martin, we'll just sniff the air and follow the smell of Pastis to find good company! ;)

**EDIT** And we are looking into ways to get a few electric wheelchairs into the truck- we won't even break into a sweat!

We would take 2 definetly, maybe 3.

What Electric Wheelchairs!

(http://www.myhome-n-health.com/catalog/Shower_Commode_Wheelchair-2.jpg)

Ade

Top class!

Like the pivoting arm- allows a good shuftie over to one side for wiping ;D

wiping?

wow

classy

 :D




but the idea?

appeals somewhat...

Be it noted that termietermite would be well pleased to be able to use such a device - she's still having to call for bedpans, and rely on others to do all her wiping, sadly!

Paddy - termie confirms she'll be happy to pay for 2 of your MB tickets - whenever you need the money just let us know! As she says, whatever her fitness, MB will ensure she can see something of what is going on!

Paddy, I'll take a ticket off you.

Ade

Paddy,

As mentioned early, I'll take 9.

When do you need the money by? (PM me).

Leftie

Leftie, we're not 100% sure we get the tickets, it's a 50/50 at the moment. As soon as we know more, we'll open a topic and discuss payments by PM.

I'll take 8, please.

10%.... leave some for the rest of us please ;)

Not happy wih HA Nord then Barry?

Quite Bob. I thought MB had become disjointed and rather souless this year due to the new bike track. Certainly a shadow of it's former self. You won't find Team Zarse on there next year, unless something goes badly wrong with the HA bookings.  :(

Loved the site and the company, hated the uphill walk to go anywhere, my old battered knees suffered.

Will HA exist next year?

Team Langustine is quoting a price , but say availability is only provisional.

Look at the other topic, no more HA nord it seems :-\

http://www.clubarnage.com/forum/index.php?topic=9168.0 (http://www.clubarnage.com/forum/index.php?topic=9168.0)

Unfortunately you're right mate. Oh well, MB's not that bad I suppose, except for the ghastly collection of misfits who gather there...

It might well reduce with time, but at the moment that is how many friends have said yes so far.

LT is absolutely right. We are staring into the dark too as for this at the moment, and all we can do is wait untill that one phone call comes from the agency. For now, we don't count on all 80 tickets, but you never know. Knetter was the first one to suggest this to the travel agency, and I took it from there. We will open a separate topic as soon as anything (positive) comes out of this, even though I already heard some rumours that MB might schrink as for pitches for the third year running :(

I don't want to make this some sort of lottery though, and give all a fair chance to join the "Club Arnage Village" we are trying to create. I think those who are interested in this will understand that 80 tickets are actually nothing for a community like Club Arnage. Have already received requests up to 20(!) tickets, and I think we can only do so much for everybody. My suggestion would be to buy a lot of Bleu Parking tickets to park up the vehicles and find someone with a van to drive people with camping gear in (and out on Sunday), so more space is created for the tents. That way we can get a lot more people on, and can definitely recreate the atmosphere we had in 2006.

As for now, please hold your horses trying to order MB tickets with us. We don't know what we're up to either, so please just order your tickets with the ACO or agencies like you would normally do. That's the only way to prevent any dissapointments... :-\

Ian, I don't think anybody would have any objections whatsoever if you guys would get some sort of priority!
and if they do, they can come and see me  >:(

This might prove to be a good option, but it will have to be a different parking. According to Bas' remarks on the Houx topic, Blue will no long be used for parking, but will be replaced with a different big parking site in another location, not sure where that would be.

I hope Paddy can secure some pitches with T&T, let's hope all 80 off them, but don't get your hopes up just yet.

Boy, I wish they would make this easier, but each year it becomes more and more of a hassle to get something decent each year, why don't we all go to Sebring each year, at least it is easier to get tickets, your closer to the action, the party is great, the only problem is the lousy beer.

Shouldn't be a problem knetter the Blue carpark is being replaced by parking Heronniere which is right next to Blue Sud and if push comes to shove you could park on Parking Blanc or near the Porsche curves.

Having the -or some- cars away from MB is actually a good idea, there are always people who hardly need their car during those days or who better shouldn't drive anyway. The scarce m3 at MB would be better used by tents than as a carpark.

One of the main advantages of having your car on pitch is to lock away anything you don't want nicked.

Good point! But one could always have community whore, ehhh car, to put thing safely away!

The lousy beer doesn't bother me.  In fact Roy, it didn't seem to bother you either.  Especially when you were busy drinking cider, Capt Morgan and Coke, Tropicoma ...   ;)

Dx

Very true ;D

Unfortunately, a no go for me next march. So will have to miss the lousy beer ;D and cider, captain morgan and (stolen) tropicoma :'(

I'll do the best I can on replacing you Roy. ;D

Well. You can replace my cousin Joe, you already have the hair for it ;D

Not sure if LT knows enough about pipes and fittings  ::)



Anyway, I rang the agency earlier this week, and they said they would ring me back by the end of the week, or early next week at the latest. As they didn't ring me yet, I guess I better give it another try first thing Monday morning. They still have high hopes for this to fall through. According to the agency, they always get what they ask for (very much unlike me, I NEVER got what I asked for at the ACO >:()

So I'll keep you all updated first half of next week. Fingers crossed to those who'd like to be in the CA/DfH Village ;)

Thanks for trying to organize this, Paddy

Cheers

Werner

Cheers Paddy....................Any news???

Not yet, we hope to know more 1 or 2 weeks time.

Deserter, traitor, turncoat ::).

 The One Armed Teddy Bear deserted MB for HA a few years ago. He knew a good thing when he saw one. No-one in there right mind deserts to MB. We need to have a little chat over a beer or 2 on Friday.

Wow thats a small opening, you'd have to be careful with your head when walking thru that one  :)

(http://www.clubarnage.com/forum/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=8707.0;attach=5880;image)

[/quote]

Deserter, traitor, turncoat ::).

 The One Armed Teddy Bear deserted MB for HA a few years ago. He knew a good thing when he saw one. No-one in there right mind deserts to MB. We need to have a little chat over a beer or 2 on Friday.
[/quote]

 ;D Keeping my options open thats all!!!
Are you drinking this time then??
Looking forward to it!

Troublesome little fecker (as they say in the left hand island, up from us a bit)

All I can say is I was on HA this year (again) for the 24 as I usually am. I have been on MB twice for the Classic... Bring it on MB (unless I cannot get a ticket)

>Martini...

Oh no, not that discussion again! :o
Anyway -as for MB- I think the only way to try and recreate the '06-MB atmosphere would be to get those tickets. Otherwise the site will be too expensive and too quiet.

Rung the agency at the end of last week, and they would phone me asap. As I see nobody on any LM-forums I know discussing allocations, I guess we're all in the wait of them plonking ACO people who will probably need another century to make up their minds.

All I can say for now is, after tripple checking with the agency on our chances for this to happen, famous last words were "we always got what we ordered".

And that's it for now, I'm just as eager as some of you peeps :-\

Will keep you updated as soon as I get that call ;)

Hip hip hooray, there's trouble again with the ACO... What a surprise >:(

Rung the agency again today, apparently the story at the moment is the ACO is working on selling parts of Houx Annex, Bleu Nord and Maison Blanche. ACO are holding tickets back for them three campsites, the rest have been released to the agencies. So the long wait becomes even longer. What fun :-X

We are hopefully getting HA Sud by going via an agency this year, more expensive but divided between the six or seven of us, honestly what's another fifteen or twenty quid each? I've discussed it with the boys and nobody is really very interested in going back to MB. The new mo'cycle track seems to have ruinned MB for ever, it's now a souless dustbowl and it ain't never coming back. We all need to move on...

Well put Andy. It was fun while it lasted .......

Well Andy, I hope you can get them! The agencies are now on hold for HA and MB, they are going to sell some ground for building purposes ??? Hope you don't get screwed by the ACO's plans!

It's not often I disagree with my learned (and older  ;D) friend, but on this occasion I protest!  >:(  ;D

MB had lost a lot of character this year, but I firmly believe that was because it had lost a lot of it's regular characters and big CA groups!!! (i.e. Team Zarse, Liverpool Boys, The Brethren, Melans, Lawnmower Man/Doris, SPS, Big H's Crowd, Stu, Robspot's Lot, Rick and Steve Cutler, Delboy's Crowd, Lorry's Group, etc etc etc and sorry if I've missed anybody!!)

Add to that the fact that the groups that were still on there were nowhere near each other (for the last five years we've always been directly next to at least 3 CA groups) and it all added up to a strange one. The fact that a lot of the groups had emigrated to HA/Bleu etc so had further to walk to the previous focul point of all CA activity (i.e. Drinking for Holland's Pitch) made it even stranger. Part of the comfortable feel of Le Mans for the past years has been to be able to wander around the campsite and meet up with other CA members and be invited into their site for a beer/low flyer.

IMHO, the bike track around MB meant it was far from a dust bowl!! Having had very hot or very wet years over the last three or four years, a solid road surface all round the campsite was in fact a pleasure to drive around and our "kit" came home in good condition and didn't need the usual "de-dusting". The fact that they installed a one way system so you drove into the site through the normal entrance and out through a new/different route made it really easy to get in and out!

That said, I am sure that Houx Annexe was  agreat site as well.

All I would like to see, so that we can all have a great time, is a major allocation so that we can all try to get on the same site. I don't care which site that is! If the way to ensure it is to have an allocation of 80(??) numbered pitches for MB through DfH's agency then I don't think we should rule it out! If anyone can get the same sort of allocation for HA then that would be great as it's almost half the price!

 

Fair points JP.

But Team Zarse didn't get where it is today by doing the same thing as everyone else. We're expanding and going places. We've turned Brad already and Rex is a double agent. We've done for BigH and we're going to crush Team JPC and DfH too, we'll never rest til we completely control the market. Erm, what the f**k am i talking about....?  ???

Well....you won't do that by only turning up with 8 t-shirts!!  >:(

 ;)

;D

From small acorns do great erm big things grow. This year we're having 1000 teeshirts made.

Yes, and Andy is paying for them all out of his own pocket, and he said everyone is allowed one for free  ;D

Is one not confusing double agent and double ending Monsieur Zarse ?? I'm sure RSM Pork Chop will have a view on this  ;D

The man, he has a point..... however a combination of the two is the most likely conclusion I suspect....

After a brief period of absence I return to find such allegations!

To be accused of double agency withing the Brethren ranks carries a punishment that I could not mention here.... its too horrible >:D

I prefer to use "Social Butterfly"... or as Elvis often refers to me, A C***.

The thought of Brad being "Turned" by Team Zarse is a horrible thought.... who went last?

The gimp

Twice

Eeeeewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww ;D

I used to be a Zarse but apparently I've been dropped. I suspect it's something to do with Pilot Zarse's party.

When? When were you rejected? Upon who's authority?

Ah I see, and how terribly perspicacious of you. The last time I saw Brad he was indeed doing something horrible across a dralon three piece. IIRC, he was wearing ladies pants.

fortunately, I do believe the only photos of men wearing womens undies are in fact of Andy....

It's not true that we dropped Rob at Pilot Zarse's party.....he managed to try and sleep half in, half out of the tent at 8pm, all by himself......

What an utter load of shite :o
Your mop bucket full of Tropicomatilda was fab... dont listen to the voices....

PP

Not so Brad.  Photographic evidence exists of other Zarses in womens attire ...   >:D

Dx

Small update. Apparently all agents got no more than 25 tickets each for MB, despite how many they ordered. The ACO is still "looking at the spaces" (what more do they need to see?! >:(), and it can take up to two months before the race untill they make up their mind. I would say they are trying to sell tickets to the racing teams first for VIP areas, and then sell the rest to us - poor fans.

We are still in the race for the tickets, and it could well be we will get a phonecall soon, according to the agent (T&T in Amsterdam). As I will be gone for nearly a month, I have given them the phone number of Marius. I honestly don't expect a phone call though, it's taken too long and by the looks of it, the ACO is being funny again. This whole scenario might explain the empty spaces on MB last year on Friday night - barely anybody will buy tickets two months before the race.

Sorry guys 'n gals, all I could do was try :-\

I'm sure I've mentioned before but the coachload of (young male  :-*) Danes opposite us last year said they bought their tickets from the Rotunde on their way in to the campsite - it's a bit blurred now but I think they arrived on Tuesday. 

The trouble is how on earth do you know if it's going to be possible to get tickets last minute and do you waste an allocation elsewhere if you can get them.

That's all very well if you're turning up in small numbers, but hopeless if when there's a large contingent to plan for.

With almost all campsites now having numbered pitches, larger groups will probably have to resort to the few non-numbered sites which are small (TR and Expo) or too far away BSJ.

I wouldn't be surprised if that is their aim, get rid of the big groups and dump em on a remote campsite as not to disturb french plonkers with their whole family!

Thing is knetter that there are not many French "plonkers" that camp at the 24h anyway.

I am sometimes at the French endurance-info forum and there are hardly any folk there that are even interested in camping at the 24h.

There was a fair few that pitched up on the verges of HA last year from friday onwards, they even sent a guy round in a large lawn mower to give it all a trim.

Hi Paddy,

no matter what the outcome will be, thanks for trying and keeping us up-to-date. Nice to read a posting from you again, you've been quite lately, but me too, I have to admit.

Cheers

Werner

Cheers for keeping us updated too Paddy. See you in June if not before!!

PP and the good Lady PP ;D