Ayse's 'Occasional Blog'
Wednesday 26th October 2022
3 Little Ducks!
I thought it must be about time for another blog post as it's now getting on for 5 months since my last one, posted on the Monday of race week this year. Quite a lot of water has passed under the bridge since the 2022 Le Mans trip came to a close and although more will be said in this year's story in due course, the last week has seen major steps in preparation for Le Mans 2023 which are worth a note or two.
The title of this post is a bit cryptic - 'three little ducks' signifying 222 in sort of bingo' parlance. 222 days to go until we leave for France on 5th June 2023 for a Le Mans which I'm really looking forward to. Apart from Toyota of course and hopefully Glickenhaus, we are expecting to see some serious manufacturer competition from Porsche, Peugeot, Ferrari and Cadillac and possibly Isotta Fraschini and Vanwall (ByKolles) as well. Having had to live with very poor top class grids since Audi and Porsche departed the WEC it will be tremendous to see a number of new prototypes taking part. And there is just the small matter of 2023 being the 100th anniversary of the first running of the great race in 1923. The expectation is that there will be a huge crowd at Le Mans next year to celebrate this - a prospect to savour!
Last week was a very important week in the preparation process as bookings opened for entry and grandstand tickets for ACO members and I was 'camped' at my pc in readiness as this year I had the task of booking tickets for myself, James and Lauren and also Allon. Following this years Le Mans there was something of a 'parting of the ways' between us and James F, so the four of us will be forming a new 'team' for Le Mans 2023. Depending on my mood at the time that I write the postscript to the 2022 story, I may record some thoughts about that as it had quite an impact upon me and the others who were at Le Mans this year.
But moving on I did quite a bit of research following the event this year in the knowledge that James would not be ordering our tickets this time. We were all agreed that we wanted to have seats in the same grandstand (T17) but did not want to sit in the front row again. Having sat there on many occasions, although that position does has benefits in terms of more legroom, constantly having to move for people coming past and having the view significantly blocked at the start and finish of the race (if the stand is badly marshaled - or not marshaled at all like this year) takes away any real advantage. It is also impossible to take any decent photographs of the cars on the track as you're simply too low down and the debris fencing is in the way. So I studied some photos that I and Allon had taken while we were in the stand and managed to obtain a full seating plan courtesy of Brian at 1st Tickets and after consulting the rest of the 'team' I made a list of six possible locations in order of preference. I had expected the process of buying online to be difficult but it proved to be surprisingly easy and I was able to get us four seats in a combination of our first and second choices. We got our combined entry tickets too but the ACO decided not to put up parking tickets until the end of November, there being whispers of a reorganisation of parking and camping areas. Having ordered the tickets on the Tuesday they arrived at home with me on Friday which was pretty efficient. I was also able to confirm our hotel rooms with our usual hotel.
So now my thoughts turn to this year's story. I did a few pages when I got back from France but still have the bulk of it to write, sadly with my memory of some of the things that we did having almost completely faded. Having inspected my photographs, I'm pretty disappointed with them overall - not the best offering I will ever have put up, but I shall press on with the aim of having it finished this side of Christmas.
