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Aysedasi's
Le Mans
I
originally wrote this sort of introduction at the beginning of September
2001, when my site had been up for about 6 months. My first effort back in
March 2001 was but a single
page with no links and no thumbnails, but
within a month I was posting galleries of the
photographs I have taken at Le Mans over the
last 19 years.
For the first month and
a half I was getting about 7-8 visitors a
week (and 3-4 of those were me!). Now,
thanks largely to the links I have traded
with Club
Arnage, Maison
Blanche, Ten
Tenths and loads of other excellent Le Mans
sites, both professional and enthusiast (like me!), I guess I receive about 100 visitors a day. In
the two or three weeks leading up to race week, that figure is nearer
1000. It may not sound a lot to you but for a
one man band who set up a web site just to
see if he could do it, I'm rather pleased.
When
I started off back at the end of February 2001 for several weeks my home page carried what I
suppose you could call my raison d'etre -
suitably French - and as I now have a lot of visitors who
haven't got a clue about me or why I have
this web site and who would never have seen that, I thought that now was probably the right
time to repeat what I said back then.
So here goes.....
My obsession with the 24 Heures du Mans began with my first visit to La Sarthe in
1986, when, like many others, I was lured by the return of the works
Jaguars to the French 24
Hour classic. Little did I know then what an all-consuming
passion this would become.
I had never given any
thought to creating a web site until one of the Tourists
(you've probably picked up on who they are by now - if you haven't and you go on
to read my
Le Mans stories, you soon will), suggested that I should publish some of my photographs
on the web. Being a (very) amateur (but keen) photographer, I've taken
quite a few photographs at Le Mans in the years since 1986, resulting in a
collection of somewhere around the 10,000 mark.
But it isn't just a question of
photographs. I am a Le Mans nut, and
each year I had gone to what some might consider extraordinary lengths to write up the story of
the Tourists' Le
Mans Weekend and it seemed quite a fun idea to put
some of this on the site as well. If nothing else,
I hope it might be a source of
interest and amusement for those who have themselves been Tourists over the years.
This is a wholly amateur
effort with no commercial interest (although if someone can show me a way to
make some money out of it I would love to
hear from them!). The construction of this site
has been a slow process, limited both
by the availability of time and web space (not necessarily in that order).
There are some fantastic sites out there dealing with every aspect of the Le
Mans experience for the expert and the uninitiated alike, and
if you go to my links pages, you will be able to access some of the
best ones.
But please
remember - this is not an
expert site. I am neither an expert photographer, writer nor even a
Le Mans expert - and you won't find
professionally taken photographs
here. There are plenty of great
sites out there where you can find
top-notch photographs of the cars from
every possible angle and
vantage-point. Every picture I
have taken has been from areas of the
circuit to which ordinary spectators
have access. (If anyone can wangle
a press pass for me for 2005 and beyond I would be
eternally grateful!). In terms of
information, I don't have access to any
more about Le Mans than anyone else who
has been to La Sarthe or has joined the
ACO. This is an enthusiast's
view of Le Mans - the world's greatest motor race. A view of the sights, the sounds and the smells which those who've been
there know only too well make the
annual trip to La Sarthe such an addictive drug. I hope you find it of interest.
If you do - let me know!
Aysedasi -
September 2001 (revised May 2005)
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