Looking

Well yes, we do tend to travel incognito when we're abroad.... Sorry I no-showed for the DfH party Marius - I'd been worshipping at the alter of Arthur (Guinness) and kind of lost track of time (and my mind, as it so happened).
I left Miami on the Wednesday evening and just as Andy Zarse had predicted, spent a miserable night in the company of American Airlines. My cabin's cart-c*nt was a particularly surly, malevolent and liver-spotted old crone. She looked and behaved like the crypt-keeper and seemed to view my requests for more $6 beers as a personal affront. Unfortunately I was not allowed anything sharp to stab her in the neck with, so I watched their crap movies instead.
I got into Paris CDG nearly an hour late. I think the cheap mofo's eased back on the throttles to save a few bucks-worth of jet A1.
Met Dave, who was already in Europe on a work assignment, picked up our rental car and left, in a hurry.
I'm not sure how he managed it (because I was hallucinating due to sleep deprivation), but we got from Charles De Gaul to Angers in Maine et Loire, via the peripherique, in less than two and a half hours. We then went shopping (for ice, mainly) before collecting our camping-car (4-6 berth Ford Pilote motor-home). The hand-over process took the obligatory hour, while it was explained how to change the transmission, switch the shower from cook to de-frost and most importantly, how to handle the dreaded toilet cassette (more of which, later).
We then headed to my parents, who live near Saumur to pick-up the rolling cool-boxes and a big gas grill. From there, we went straight to the track and met with 16 of our regular Le Mans party, who were already set-up on Bleu Nord. One of them (Hazleggs) towed a big box trailer with a vary large quantity of tinned Guinness and a similar amount of (not too shabby at all) Champagne.
I was also on chef's duty for this weekend, due mainly to the fact that I pissed and moaned so much about shitty track food the last time I attended. I'm quite chuffed with myself frankly. On Thursday night I did Ginger Teriyaki Chicken Wings. On Friday we gorged on Sticky Garlic Shrimp with Linguine. Saturday was Mesquite Seasoned Pork Chops with fire-grilled peppers and on Sunday my piece de ressistance, Herb Sausages in Vodka Sauce and Penne. All in all, my grub was f**k*ng bingo - even though I say it meself.
I was quite impressed with the changes to the facility. It still stinks like an open sewer, but the place is a lot nicer than it used to be.
My first sight of the track was when we adjourned trackside for the start, just up from the Dunlop Bridge on the inside of the curve.
We watched the start - toasted our fallen friends and got very seriously hammered on our own substantial supply of bubbly. We then returned to the campsite for Guinness chasers. We ended up on the pit straight tribune from about 11pm Saturday night, until about 3.00am Sunday. On the trudge back to the campsite Dave and another young lad in our group partook of the reverse bungee.
Sunday's weather required a good beer-buzz to get through, so we started early. We still had a mountain of Nigerian to get through after all. We headed back to the village and set ourselves up outside the Guinness Bar. It took a little while to notice that in a bizarre irony, the only people freely quaffing the black stuff was us - they'd run out, apparently. Anyway, the weather got worse, we eventally took the seats of those who just couldn't stomach the pissing rain anymore and we dug-in for a good dinner-time sesh. I couldn't even be arsed to go and watch the final drizzle splattered laps, like some of our group did and when it was all done, I headed straight back to the campsite to refill the coolers.
Like most, we'd lost a few folding chairs, but overall everything was pretty much as we'd left it. I did see the argey-bargey with the adolescent campsite thieves, but didn't really care to get involved. I'd already knocked one drunken French asshole on his back, the night before, so I didn't want to push my luck with the authorities (or get my head kicked-in).
Sunday night was a great wind-down. A ton more beer, the remaining Champagne and a very friendly gathering with our immediate Bleu Nord neighbors.
Shamefully I did not track down a single member of this forum - other than Chris24, who wandered into our encampment on Friday afternoon and attempted to poison with with Jim Beam, decantered into a plastic Evian bottle, for reasons I couldn't (and still can't) fathom. I also caught sight of an old Jag with a wirey figure behind the wheel, wafting past our site. "That's Skinner", I thought, but he was gone just as quickly as he appeared.
So, to summarize:
Thoroughly good time, but a bloody long way to go, for the same (worse in some aspects) experience as Sebring and The Petit.
I thought the 'improvements' did indeed improve the venue.
I drank way too much.
I smoked way too many stogies
I ate way too much stuff that is now lining my ventricles
Laughed a lot, but also glad to be home again.
Pix (if anyone's remotely interested) will appear on dunlopbridge.com presently.
Missed you Randy/Lee/Greg. It's weird you guys (and the Dutchmen) not being around when there's race cars circulating and I've got a cold tube of Guinness that needs taking good care of. See you soon.....