Rainier's Ramblings
By Rainier Ehrhardt
Upon our arrival in Le Mans on Tuesday, the track was calm, borderline deserted. In fact, the only signs of life came from the handful of team trucks parked in the paddock and a few scattered personnel from the teams bundled up trying to shelter from the cold. What a change from June. To make things even more bizarre, a thick layer of fog had engulfed the track making any attempt at a proper test session useless.
I expected more teams and officials to show their heads as the fog dissipated but by noon the setting was still as surreal as before minus the fog. As the afternoon test session got underway, there was no buzz around the paddock, barely a motor running. There was no familiar voice from the PA system, not that there were any spectators to listen. Gates were closed, and the press room was not even open. When they said private testing, they really meant it.
Needless to say, parking for us was not a problem, we could park next to the trailers if we wanted to, and we did. There was loads of room and certainly no one to kick us out.
It's impossible to imagine Le Mans this quiet, but there it was in all its glory, the beautiful autumn light hitting the remnants of the Ford chicane, after a rather crude solid white fence was put up to create the "raccordement" from the Bugatti circuit to the 24 Hours track. There is something strange about seeing an Audi R8 go right into La Chapelle instead of straight on to Tertre Rouge.
To put it into perspective, I propose to think back to the film "Le Mans" as I venture to assume most Club Arnage readers are very familiar with it and can remember the very memorable opening sequences. The fantastic looks into the tents of exhausted campers, the fire marshalls, the "gendarmes" probably abusing their power again, and the sea of people in and around the fete foraine and the start finish straight. Got that clearly in your mind? Now take all that away and that's what it was like. A complete reversal of everything you've ever known about Le Mans. The world could have been upside-down and it wouldn't have changed much. It's like when you're a child in primary school and you run into your teacher in the store. It's so shocking because you had never imagined her outside the classroom. For all you knew, she stayed in that classroom grading papers all night until you saw her the next morning. The feeling from this trip has been very similar. I've never bothered to imagine the track at Le Mans without the buzz from the 24 Hours. This is what I've always known and perhaps deep down I figured the hospitality tents and the ferris wheel just stayed up year round. Ah, foolish me.
The town of Arnage was not alight with British, German, and French fans, nor were any of the usual bars open to serve them. It was business as usual for the locals and apart from a few "Le Mans 1000km" banners around town, there was no sign of an impending international event. Fortunately, as the week got longer, more teams began to show up and we finally got booted out of our parking space. There were more cars on the track and there was a slight attendance in the Dunlop stands. We were able to watch what goes into setting up such an event. The sheer number of temporary structures that go up in a matter of days and how security keeps getting tighter and tighter. The Le Mans I'm used to was finally coming to life.
Don't get me wrong, I'm very excited about the prospects this 1000km race provides, and I'm always happy to come back to Le Mans but it is quite depressing to have seen the track in such a dead state. And I have to agree with what Peter Radcliffe noted this morning as he walked about the paddock in sub-zero degree weather sporting sandles. I'll just quote him: "I much prefer Le Mans in June."
