Have a great race this year everyone, my thoughts will be with you all. I might even be able to come along next year.

GO ASTON!

I'd love to. In fact, my wife has even said that she wouldn't object. But it will be hard. I'm not even sure I will have paid for this trip by then. Seriously.

Pass the hankie

Your coverage of Le Mans 2004 brought tears to my eyes. Having recently fulfilled a lifelong ambition of travelling from Australia to see the race, there's something about Le Mans that you just don't find anywhere else. It's the little things like thumbing a lift into town in an EVO VIII and having some nutter jump out in the middle of the road, and count you down to a burn-out (my shirt still smells of eau-de-clutch); the French woman in Maison Blanche looking in vain for someone who speaks French; the exemplary behaviour of the fans despite the intricate sculptures made from empty beer bottles. It's a motor race for the true believers. Indeed, I have now concluded that the worst thing about living in Australia is that I can't travel to Le Mans every year.

Matthew Townsend
Melbourne

Thanks again for a great experience everyone.

Hi Smokie,

No, on the day of the driver's parade, I hot footed it into town and brought a new one. Glad I did, otherwise I wouldn't have been able to take any of these.

Did you read the articles in Evo about Le Mans? I thought they were terrific. All the memories came flooding back...

Saving up for next year? You bet. Not sure if I will have paid off this year by then, but will be trying damned hard.

Finally, I was off to Le Mans where I met my Dad. This was a real experience. People prepare all year for their trip to Le Mans. The English dominate the race in many ways, no more so than in the campsites:



Clubs and groups come from all over Europe. Here was a group of Ford Focus RS owners that had come over from the UK together:



And the Lotus 7 club. I counted about 50 of these:



Some very rare cars turn up too, this was the first time I had seen an Aerial Atom:



Spotted an RS2 for sale. [RS2Babe, I wish I could have brought your car home with me. ]



And others...







Audi was sponsoring the race day and provided some heavy duty machinery for the task. I tried without success to get a lift.

This was an A8 W12. Mmm...







After not being shown the track courtesy of the boys from Ingolstadt, I got up at 6:30am one morning to run around it - all 15.3 kms. I'm glad I did, because it gave me a chance to look at the parts of the circuit that I would not have otherwise been able to see.

It sounds obvious, but the Mulsanne straight goes on for ages. Have a look at this photo we took from a joy ride in a helicopter.



Luckily, the tickets we organised gave us access to the pits during the off-racing time. The teams are apparently obliged to keep the garages open while they work on the cars. If anyone is going to Le Mans a ticket in the stands is optional, but a Pitwalk ticket is a must:











I have always wondered what a 24 hour brake set up looks like. Look at the size of those pads. :eek:



The pitwalk ticket is also good at Le Mans as it allows you to walk around the back paddock during the race. So when Alan McNish was run off the track, we could see his team running around trying to frantically fix the car.



You can even sneak up the side access paths where some of the officials will actually let you watch the cars come in for their pit stops:



I even spotted this beautiful RS6:



I think that car deserves a close up.



While the race is on, you can walk around much of the track for good viewing, but the Mulsanne straight is difficult to get to without going to some significant trouble.



The pit seats are quite good as you can lean over the railing and get a good view of the pits as the teams work on the cars:



Le Mans has a carnival atmosphere at night. Anyone who has played the PS2 game of the same name will recognise the ferris wheel:



At night rival campsites have fireworks competitions that seem to go on forever. They are not backyard catherine wheels either. Some of these are similar to those you see on the Sydney Harbour at NYE. It's incredible.



In the end, the Japanese Goh Audi team won with 30 seconds to spare from the second placed Audi. Not bad after 24 hours eh?



As you can imagine, and hopefully see, the trip was brilliant. Now all I have to do is pay for it. Contributions welcome.

Thanks to everyone for making me feel so welcome at Le Mans this year. The trip from Australia was a tremendous success.

If anyone is interested, the following is a short pictorial story. It was written for my local friends, so please forgive me if it sounds a bit simple.
===========================
First we landed in Paris. Parisians have to be the worst drivers in the western world. Their parking has to be seen to be believed. Have a look at these Smarts.

Can opener anyone?





Many if not most of the cars have scratches and dents all over the front and rear of the cars. They literally bump each other from side to side until they can extract themselves from their parking position.

Still, we saw some nice motors. I think this is an Aston Martin Vanquish:



Then we headed south towards Monaco. This is where the cars became really interesting, for example, there was Ferrari's latest incarnation, the Scaglietti:



In Nice, they have a novel way of making sure people obey the traffic lights. Try running a red light through this intersection.


We asked our concierge which was the best way to get to the GP. He said, "Train, taxi, boat or helicopter. But I recommend a boat." We took his advice.



As we were coming through the harbour, we saw some very nice yachts. This one was owned by a Russian entrepeneur of some description.





Was delighted to run into Murray Walker.



After a day's racing the cars come out in force:

















After a while my travelling buddy Jason said "Oh look, there's a crappy Porsche turbo." =)

One of these boats at the front belongs to David Coulthard apparently.



On race day, we had nice seats in a place called high row K. We managed to see the cars as they came around the bend from the straight after the tunnel where Takuma Sato blew his Honda to bits.







After Monaco it was off to Munich to collect our car.

We got to the agency only to be told that the car we wanted was not available. "Zorry, ve do not haf de auto you ordered. Ve only haf de Carrera 4 convertible."

"Bugger, we'll have to make do with that then, won't we?"  

And off we hopped to Nurburgring. At this point, I have to make one thing clear. The rental contract makes express reference to the fact that the car should not be used on a race track, even if it is open to the public. Sounds to me like they had Nurburgring in mind.

Being an obedient citizen, I wouldn't take the car on the track would I? No, but I had a dream in which I did. This is my recollection of that dream.  

First of all, it was pretty amazing just to be there. The track was only open for a couple of hours, so we had to get straight out. It was a bit daunting at first, no very daunting.

The first impression you have is of bikers on your tail the whole time. And some of them are moving fast, scarily fast.  

I was aware of the adage that you need to drive this track one corner at a time. For those of you who don't know, the northern loop of Nurburgring, which is open to the public, was a GP circuit until Niki Lauda had his fateful accident in which he was badly burned. The track is made up of blind corners, blind crests, off camber corners, fast straights, you name it, Nurburgring has it.

So, I went slowly at first. The locals tell me that as many as one person a month dies on the track, mostly people who hire a performance car and allow the blood to go to their head...

Watching the other traffic is something you need to pay great attention to. As suggested, much of it is really moving. I still have this vivid picture of an M3 CSL getting partially airborne as two wheels hit the curb going over a crest. Needless to say, the sound as it screamed past, was beautiful.

The car we have is pretty good too. Being a convertible carrera 4, it is quite heavy, and not a lot faster than some of our cars, but the traction is something to die for.

Through the carousel, you can pick a line and then literally jump on the throttle. The car just launches forward while maintaining the trajectory you have set for it. It's amazing.

The engine has heaps of torque too. I found that I was changing down into second too often, whereas the trick appears to be to leave it in third and then just allow the grunt of the motor to pull you through the corner slowly. Driving smoothly around this track appears to be the name of the game.



Spent two or three days driving through the Swiss Alps. It was my turn to drive on this day, and do you think I was a little bit pleased about that?





By the end of the day we had arrived at a place called Zurmatt at the foot of the Matterhorn. The roads on the way here were without question, the best driving roads I have ever been on. Being in a 911 to enjoy them was an experience I will never forget.



The Swiss clearly take their four wheel drives seriously. Yes, that's a 6.1 Brabus.





We took our obligations to explore the Autobahns seriously too. Hehe.



The best analogy of being on the autobahn I can think of is that scene from Finding Nemo, in which Crush the turtle is teaching Squirt the baby turtle how to ride the East Australian Current.

It's quite calm as you sit in the middle lane, but then when you move over to the fast lane, all hell breaks loose. Suddenly, you are swept up at a great rate of knots.

The car is remarkably stable at speed, but it's still scary. The impact on other drivers when you pass them at this speed is difficult to imagine. But given that you feel the car go "Wump" and move towards the centre lane every time you pass a slower vehicle, it would make sense that the other car feels a reciprocal effect. How unnerving would that be?

Hung out in Venice for a couple of days. If you get the chance to go, do it. In many ways, it is the most interesting city I've ever been to:



Visited some very impressive castles. Apparently Disney designed their trademark after this:



Visited Amsterdam, the city of my mispent youth.

Hi everyone, my european adventure has started.

And from a claustrophobic booth in a crusty hotel in Zurmatt, Switzerland, I want to ask: when are we meeting for dinner, and where abouts?

Also, does anyone know when the issue of Autocar is coming out with the LM review?

Thanks in advance.

Getting excited now!

Matthew

That's a cracker. In fact, for the next month or so, that will be my home page. Thanks again.

Thanks Phil. Bummer.

Something like "Cars, drivers and race preparations."

The reason is that I would like to log in occasionally to catch up on who's driving what, what the season's results are so far, and so on, but I don't really know where to look without having to go through a stack of unrelated posts.

I'm fascinated by the technical side of the race, but being on the other side of the world, the social side does not have the same sort of relevance for me.

The things I thought would be good, would items like the Lister Storm being seized, the practice day entrance list and the story about the British Audi Le Mans entry etc.

Just a suggestion.

I'll be there and so will my Dad (assuming I can drag his sorry ass out of the motorhome).

Terrific stuff, keep the ideas coming.

Thanks for the offer of accommodation RS2 Babe, but I suspect we will be heading towards the Alps. I reckon we will be trying to get a couple of laps of the Ring in, even if we can't spend the day there.

Tell me more about the Col de la Faucille. It won't be snowing in May will it? Or is it not that high? I would love to go through the Swiss Alps. I went backpacking to St Moritz when I was a wee laddy and will never forget the train trip up through the mountains as long as I live.

Some of you might recall that I'm coming along to Le Mans for the first time this year from Australia and that a couple of weeks beforehand, I'm going to the Monaco GP.

Well, in order to stave off the boredom between these two reasons for the trip (not into galleries), my friend and I have decided to hire a 911 for a week.

Now we want to start to plan the trip. Our first preference was the Nurburgring, but presumably because of the preparations for the 24 hour race (which is on at the same time as LM ), the track is rarely open in late May/early June and so we've had to think of other things.

The Stelvio pass sounds good, any other suggestions?

What about motorsport events on the weekend of 29/30 May or 5/6 June? Better still, where can we find a calender with events to choose from?

Thanks in advance,

Matthew



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I take it that it's good?