2010 Le Mans Classic

[Mike Bell]

Originally Posted by SFurness

Some of the weird and wonderful from the camp site.

The guys in the van came prepared !!

The little green job was parked next to us (name that car) and was driven by a 6 plus foot driver from the Wirral only finished in the last few weeks. A French guy came over who also has one. They talked for ages and agreed to meet in two years time. Love !!

Think Zef should be able to tell us what the 'little green job' is.......

Love the Sherpa bus- bicycles a wise precaution?

JT (and others)- brilliant pics, keep them coming! I'm already planning 2012 trip.....

John, is that an Opel Ascona in post 314? Never realised one raced at LM- wow! Makes a change from Capris and CSLs Oh, and only one pic of a Jagermeister Porsche?

[Mike Bell]

Just checked LMC site- guess Chevvy Monza, not Opel!

[WillFly]

We had a group of 18 Caterhams and a Freelander (his GT6 broke before the trip) travel down together and had a great time. Apart from getting stuck in Rouen (how did the Lancs ever miss that place) on thursday afternoon in blistering heat, arriving at camping Blue Nord at 10.30 to the biggest thunderstorm I've seen in ages it was great. The people responsible for the facilities on Camping Blue should be shot at dawn, SIX showers for 3,000 (?) people at 25 euros a night is completely taking the p*ss

As for the Paddocks and racing, petrolhead nirvana. The sound of the Corvette burbling its way through the paddock roads was spine tingling.

I too was very frustrated by the ludicrously high fences, health and safety gone mad. They need to make the outside grandstands higher, like the one on the pits side, and also build up the banking more at Tetre Rouge before the bend. I've got about 1400 photos to look through. If anyone has a particular car they'd like photos of drop me a PM or e-mail with car number, type and colour and I'll see what I can do.

A big thanks to the staff at the Tetre Rouge bar for putting up with a group of mad Rost Boefs, I learned a new word this weekend Panache (sp?) - Stella Shandy !

BTW the two best catering establishments were a British Burger van near the Bugatti Circuit and a British Ice Cream van who came round the camp site on the sunday evening. For a country thats supposed to do haute quisine the catering onsite was shocking. I heard it was passable int eh ACO club but I'm not paying 90 euros just to get a baguette !!

I think there's a lot of improvements on the infrastructure side to be made in the next two years if they want to keep the crowds coming in.

Here's one of the night shots from Saturday night at the Porsche Curves.

plenty more to come.

[zefarelly]

tentenths logo, with a Dubonnet kiss, nout to do with me I might add!



On the grid before the start



There was stiff competition for the seat, power to weight ratio being a prime consideration.

[zefarelly]

I bought our crew 6 bottles of coca cola . . . £25 on site catering and refreshment prices where shocking

On Thur night I cooked veal with a roquefort sauce, baby potatoes with shallots and garlic in butter and fresh asparagus and beans, washed down with a few glasses of decent Claret, and it it cost me less, including the fuel for the Weber!

[WillFly]

Know what you mean Zefarelly, saw one person buy four small bottles of water, 14 Euros !!! I now know the location of every water tap on site I was getting through 2 - 3 2 litre platypusses a day, then we'd start on the beer in the evening.

Need to get hold of a pits pass for next time to get some better pictures.

Roy

[John Turner]

Originally Posted by Mike Bell

Think Zef should be able to tell us what the 'little green job' is.......

For the record, it's a Rochdale Olympic.

Originally Posted by WillFly

I learned a new word this weekend Panache (sp?) -Stella Shandy !

A gorgeous bird that Stella Shandy, such a refreshingly exotic minx .... errr mix.

[zefarelly]

A phase 2 to be precise John owner would have been accosted by serial obscurity collector Patrice Wattine. We met him in the paddock on Friday.

[dikko]

Took loads of Zef doing the Le Mans track sprint but JW's camera I was using went on the blink..Hope it managed to get the action....
Would love to see one of 'Ali Joe' in his head towel....
Hard work in the heat for the drivers and their cars - a big well done.
Great event with immense collection of race and acres of road cars.
It did lose a BIG opportunity to finish in a big way though. Early days.

[Colin McKay]

A fantastic weekend and very grateful for the opportunity to be part of the foremost 10/10 team , what a little darling the Harrington is.

Currently in Amboise musing over the thermal efficiency index of a Jag with a blown head gasket, but I'll worry properly about that next week when we need to head home, slowly......

[John Turner]

Having decided that the Porsche Curves were useless for pics and devoid of any refreshments, a walk down to Arnage was contemplated but there appeared no obvious or quick way on foot, and suffering the final pangs of thirst, and hallucinating, we decided to stagger back towards the Grandstand area. Our pace was slow but we caught sight of an enterprising British ice cream van who dispensed 99s and cokes, and suitably refreshed we returned trackside. Nowhere to take pics from the outside of Nouvelle portion but we noted that in two places the barriers had been moved and leant up against the safety fences and used as ladders to enable the individuals concerned to scale them and take pics over the top of the fence. In one case this had been done right in front of the marshals who turned a blind eye. Can you imagine doing that at the Silverstone Classic - shot at dawn would be too good for them Anyway, we had missed most of this race and disappointed that Claudia Hurtgen had to pull off in the Ferrari 275/330P; she had been going very well, holding down 2nd, I believe. Also didn't see Aston DP212 in action which spent the rest of the weekend sitting forlornly in the paddock. Anyway, a few snatched shots through the fence at Virage Ford was all I got of this one:-

[John Turner]

Back to the Press room to cool down; it was beautifully air conditioned although it regularly ran out of water from the dipensers. All the following 18 shots were taken through the press window which was angled and two layered so lots of lovely artistic streaks and reflections on these .... not! 3 races, 3 photographic failures still I guess that you'd rather see them than not. Although I'd been to Le Mans (2007 24 hours) before, it was all a bit of a new experience for me, experimenting with the best places to shoot from. Anyway, what I remember from this race is that whilst it was going on and the Plateau 5 cars were beginning to pit for their compulsory stops, Gareth Burnett, Chocolate Drop and team were causng havoc as they were moving majestically up the pit lane at walking pace, no doubt having been called to be ready for the first race of Plateau 6. Incidentally, on one of my sheets, it referred to Gareth Brunett, although I'm pretty sure that when we were speaking to him, he was going greyer by the minute! You'll note that my report is of an anecdotal nature rather than race reporting. If you want to know about the races and the results, you know where to go .... I mean find them!

[John Turner]

More:-

[John Turner]

More:-

[dikko]

John, had camper at Arnage. Fences were high there too. Would not have recommended the walk mind - took me 3/4 hour to cycle to the pits. In that heat it was like everywhere was three times the distance (just like the 3 hour Saturday hike in the trailered car (had to abandon it in someones garden... cost me a bouquet)... Great photos though, sorry I missed you. Cuppa always waiting....

[John Turner]

Thanks, Dikko; sure we'll catch up sometime soon. Amazing how many Ten Tenthers were there. Sounds like we made the right decision not to go to Arnage, and as you say, the heat made everything seem 3 times as far!

[John Turner]

We obviously decided to forage for food during the first race for plateau 6, so the next 18 pics are from Race 1 of Plateau 1. Light was beginning to fade by this time and my camera really doesn't have an adequate lens for these conditions, so it's whack the ISO setting up to its max (1600) and slow the shutter speed down as far as my steadiness of hand can cope with and do the rest in Adobe Photoshop. I'm sure that I will be told that's all wrong but hey ....:-

[John Turner]

More:-

[gary396]

Originally Posted by John Turner

We obviously decided to forage for food during the first race for plateau 6, so the next 18 pics are from Race 1 of Plateau 1. Light was beginning to fade by this time and my camera really doesn't have an adequate lens for these conditions, so it's whack the ISO setting up to its max (1600) and slow the shutter speed down as far as my steadiness of hand can cope with and do the rest in Adobe Photoshop. I'm sure that I will be told that's all wrong but hey ....:-

Look good to me John. I was at Mulsanne taking shots of the same race - currently using Photoshop to lighten / crop a few which I'll post later today. Struggled in the fading light and getting a clear shot above the fencing though! Having never been before I was initially surprised to see fellow spectators carrying step-ladders along with their camera bags - once I saw the height of the fencing I realized why! Gary

[SAMD]

Thats all wrong, but hey...

[John Turner]

More:-

[WillFly]

Fading light John, looks pretty light to me My shot of car no 17 was taken at 22.23 (UK time) so 23.23 CEST, in fact my camera may even be on GMT, but anyway it was pitch black !! That was taken from about 50 - 60 feet away with flash.

[gary396]

Some taken at Mulsanne - sorry about the lighting - it was starting to get quite dark but hopefully they convey the view which was quite spectacular. Few more to follow.

[gary396]

Few more:

[gary396]

Final batch from this race: