Which is not true as we were searched at Monday around noon driving back to our camp at Bleu Nord.
They also wanted to take our (faily big) sledgehammer away which is used to ram the flagpole a good two feet into the ground...

We switched to cans then for the next few days before we started smuggleing the booze in by the kettlegate at the road to Arnage.

Rucksacks were never searched during the race, but I walked by several lads having to leave their beers behind. One of my mates walked by the sec at Maison Blance. Bottle of wine in the right, Peugeot flag in the left...

Sorry for not being here for so long

I can happily cancel my request as we were able to obtain enough Houx Annexe - and not only three but as our group increased we needed 5 which we were able to get

Request cancelled, got tickets from an official reseller for Annexe

Reconaissance visit to the 2006 testday and every race week since then - that makes 5 trips and 4 race visits

5th anniversary next year, I hope to make it 10 before they run electric cars 

Great read, though because of personal experience I miss the "Leroy Merlin" DIY store located at the Tecnopark which is in the "forbidden area" between Beausejour campsite and Mulsanne straight.
Opening hours are 0900-2000 monday to saturday, but this is restricted of course on wednesday and thursday as the whole area get's fenced off for the public from 2pm (?)

It's quite handy if your genny breaks down or falls victim to campsite theft. They have a larger range of gennies to chose from than Carrefour has and of course all the other toys men like to play with...

Our german 99 Euro genny last year was delivered without a fuel petcock (you should check equipment, I bought "en route" to LM).
Sadly the cheapest genny had a 300€ pricetag, but it was a nice 4 stroke boxed type with 1kW. Quiet and again handy in starting a car with a flat battery as it also had the car battery cables
Was nicked a month later at the 24h of Spa...

Phew, let's call us

JetAlliance Racing 

Camping Members: Me and a friend, may be 2 newbies
Working Members: 2 of our group at JetAlliance Racing
Out: arrival very early wednesday, may be earlier
Back: Monday morning
Camping: Bleu Nord
Grandstand: None
Vehicle: Alfa 147 1.6 TS - may be old Passat i35 or Golf IV depending on how many newbies come with us

Shame our plans were destroyed by the last minute hiring of our mechanics by JetAlliance, but we'll regroup and make it a nice week in france, what ever the weather is

The entrance with the Danes having their camp at the front is really a hotspot. BSJ was quite okay from the attendance in 2007 when I was there, but the way around the danish camp was really dangerous as you can't look around the corners and security is not always up to date with the desires of in and outgoing drivers.
They should really think about the Danes and let pedestrians walk through the camp. Having been on BSJ in 06 (without fencing for the Danes) and 2007 with their high security camp it made a 20min difference walking to the Porsche curves - and we arrived on wednesday 5am
Also the sanitaries where in very bad shape as all cleaning personell was working for the Danes and normal people's sanitary were only cleaned early in the morning - and remember the weather

I hope it's only this year with the ticket problems, but I don't understand the ACO making up lost ground that far away from the village. Annexe was already made smaller for 2008 and now there's a soccer stadium around???
Where did they play before???
Also what up with the Bugatti track? Now extended through the Maison Blanche site, but still a boring track. Changes were not really necessary imho
It's just that I have every year the impression of being a persona non grata camping, having a few (more) beers and walking around the muddy/dusty spectator areas.
Can they have a quarter million spectators sleeping in hotels and watching the race from the grandstands??? No, get back to the roots ACO!!!

Take the tram last year it was 3,50 for a day ticket and you drop out of the tram right where the VIP grandstand is. That's Place de la Repulic or sth like that. NOT the Place des Jacobines where the team gather to start the parade.

Embassy was kind enough to send their girls on the parade, Charouz girls could only be seen at the Jacobines

Mad Friday is not mad anymore. The most mad action I've seen in 2008 was at the Spa-Francorchamps parade on wednesday evening...

Any chance to get 3 adjacent Annexe tickets?
Trade for HA only - not for sale

How true, but you forgot about the early 80s, as we were still pretty unprotected. God, how many times did I crash with my bike not wearing a helmet, having normal nutrition - hell I don't even know what glutenfree means or does to your body
And im phsyically and psychically ok - apart from that racing addiction

I wonder why so many kids nowadays have allergies en masse with all that super duper baby food???
In German we have a saying - translated freely: "Dirt cleans your stomach" - and I think it's true

Yeah, that's exactly the spirit I had spending the night to monday sitting in my car as it was fully loaded and I had to wait for a new tyre from Point S monday monring. And that was after spending € 163,50 for towing and another 200 on monday for a Michelin. And another 160€ at home for a Continental as you're not allowed to run different tyres on one axle...

Anyone heard about people stabbing tyres on HA? Mine was damaged on the inside flank, I looked around and saw nothing harmful on the campground. Also the damage itself looked much like done by a screwdriver. Though it's hard to reach the inside with 8" wide wheels and being pretty low with the ride height.

Not to speak about the faulty german genny for a hundred (got that back) or 300 for an overpriced french genny...
It's Le Mans and as already said, if you're a regular you know where to go and where not to go on friday. And btw, we turned our genny off over night as we had a real fridge and temperatures were not that high overnight. Beer was still cold in the morning.

I thought I share this video of Angel Burgueno's crash during the 2006 testday with you.

That crash gave a seat to Warren Hughes as Burgueno crashed before completing the madatory 10 consecutive laps.
Hard hit, the barrier was pushed back a metre and had to be repaired with heavy machinery.
http://de.youtube.com/watch?v=ig7de7qa1l8

@ piglet - camping only possible for only a few euros above ACO.
I've paid 58 instead of 55 for HA + 20€ shipping

But don't take away all my HA tickets then, hopefully I need a few more than this year

The problem is that Le Mans has always been the place of forward thinking engineering, shown with the FSI at last.

What disturbs me much more than 6 Diesel cars is the sound of the rest. Why are those cars so much restricted? The 997 and 430's sound is a joke, in 06 when you were lucky and a car came along alone you could still hear the downshifts for the first chicane sitting at Tertre Rouge - not to talk about the various sweet spots at Spa Francorchamps where the cars accelerate a metre away from you.

First task for the ACO is to give the other 49 cars the straight pipes back, then we can talk about braking the Diesel

just a little sidenote: My favourites at Le Mans this year were apart from the Murcielago the Autocon and Teramos P1's - guess why

Well, I don't get the point of that thread. Sadly there were 10 cars keyed on HA, but that is sadly the risk whilst attending a major event. The same can happen around football stadiums or whatever. I just feel sorry for the owners.
The stealing is a common practice, as it looks like especially on Bleu, but you can prevent if you know about.
Our genny was fitted to my wheel with a motorbike insurance chain and lock and the wheel protected with a special bolt, all valuables inside the locked car and the key at night IN my sleeping bag, not somewhere in the tent.
Call me crazy, but my camera and lenses together with my friends had a value of around 4000€, 2500€ of that my equipment.

Apart from the above mentioned keyed cars I only experienced very friendly people on HA. The Beer Disposal Team seemed to be friendly, I had no further contact with them, but there was nothing to complain about.
The english group with at the junction on the other side of the Disposal Team was friendly as well. Great party on thursday, all very friendly people and probably due to their age it was possible to sleep next to their gazebo later that night. 2am and it was done.
Also the guys between that group, us and the Pistonheads were all very kind, we helped them erecting their tent (they said it takes 10min in the shop ), they gave us some beers, we loaded a flat battery with our genny, got a pack of smoke on sunday afternoon.

Hey, HA is a party zone, but I can't complain at all. I was sleeping good every day, nothing destroyed, nothing nicked, not a single problem with other people.
Spend a few minutes at the roundabout coming from the parade, but for me there's no point standing there, and I had the wrong clothes on, a little cold it was.
Also on Friday there's a meet and greet of the German Sportscar magazines on Houx (and their forum members), so that's the way to go. Sadly Richard Lietz didn't find time this year, but 2007 we had Stefan Mücke joining us for 30min and 2006 T2M engineer Martin Stessl spend 2 hours answering EVERY question.
So with the new tram that's the perfect relaxed friday for us starting with the pitwalk at noon. Hopefully Embassy Racing will stay for some more years

The only thing that annoys me is that I don't have media accreditation with track access unlike in the Le Mans Series. Those catch fencing and the new Esses/Tertre Rouge really took away some atmosphere.

2009 planning has already started, ordering tickets via a fair priced dutch agency saves you some nerves