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We
left the circuit as usual, shortly after the race, and headed back to St.
Symphorien des Monts, where we would once again be staying at Le Relais du
Bois Leger. On route, we stopped at Ernée, a small town which seemed to
amount to one main road, on which all traffic heading both north and south must
pass. Despite still feeling like death warmed up, I managed to swill down a cup
of coffee there.
The
team photo taken at the bar in Ernée, shows all of the other team members
looking wonderfully fit and alert including Ian and Robert, who had somehow
managed to drive us there without falling asleep. An amazing feat, bearing in
mind that I slept all the way!
At last we reached the overnight
stop, and what a welcome sight it was! For me there was no hope (or wish)
whatsoever to join with the others for M. Le Bigot’s culinary extravaganza at
Le Rotisserie Normande. After a revitalising shower, I went straight to bed
at about 6 p.m., and didn’t wake again until some 12 hours later.
Fortunately
in all the circumstances, Monday was an easy relaxing day. We weren't due to
get the boat home from Cherbourg until late afternoon, so we had the best part
of the day to ourselves before heading off to the ferry terminal.
We started by paying a visit to a
wine merchant, M. Laissez, from whom Ian had purchased wine on previous trips to
Le Mans. We visited his premises, where the wine was actually being bottled and
labeled, and various deals were done over incredibly strong black coffee. All
the remaining space in the three cars was taken up with cases of wine, and
Alan’s six small bottles of champagne.
From here, we started off towards
Cherbourg, stopping off for lunch at a nameless place*, recorded for posterity
in my photograph album. By this time I was feeling much, much better, and even
managed a quite delicious omelette for lunch. Unfortunately in these
situations, the pendulum has a habit of swinging to and fro, and as I recovered
from my particular woes, Alan’s were just beginning. He was going down with a
similar sort of bug which would lay him low for the rest of the day.
(*2008 note -
I'm pretty certain now that the 'nameless place' of 1987 was actually
Isigny-sur-Mer, as I later recognised it when I stayed there in 2002 on the way
to the first Le Mans Classic and then again on the way to Le Mans in 2003).
We rounded off the afternoon with
a visit to the Normandy landing beaches, visiting the museum in the sand dunes.
At some point we realised we were cutting it a bit fine, time-wise. We raced
off from there, myself as a passenger for the first time in a Porsche 911! We
made Cherbourg with very little time to spare, and had to postpone a planned
visit to the hypermarket!
On our return to Portsmouth, we
began to worry about the amount of wine tucked away in the boots of the cars.
We knew that we were over the limit, but should we risk the green channel,
“nothing to declare”? Bearing in mind that one of the two cars had been picked
upon and “turned over” in 1986, we didn’t think it would be such a good idea to
run the risk! We therefore decided to declare exactly what we had, and produced
the invoice from M. Laissez as evidence. We were a little surprised then, when
we were basically told that, as we had been honest, and we were probably not
very much over the top, we were free to go on, without so much as a casual
glance in any of the cars! Honesty is obviously the best policy!
So, that brings the somewhat
unfortunate story of Le Mans 1987 to a conclusion. Looking back, it would have
been very easy for me to have lost interest in Le Mans there and then, what with
a second failure for Jaguar, and having spent a large part of the week-end
feeling very unwell. But that psychological Le Mans "bug" bites hard,
and, following the purchase not only of the Duke video of the race, but the very
first Radio Le Mans video, most of the unpleasant aspects of the trip
soon faded into insignificance. There would always be next year, and it had to
be better than 1987!
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