Aysedasi's Le Mans

Friday dawned, the traditional Le Mans ‘rest day’. A chance to recharge the batteries after two late nights in preparation for the rigours of the race weekend. We had talked earlier in the week as well as on the journey back from Mulsanne the night before about the possibility of driving into town (as we did last year) for a wander around and perhaps a bite of lunch. The alternative was to go to the Classic British Welcome at St. Saturnin, however we had been a bit disappointed with that the last time we went in 2019, when there seemed to be relatively few really interesting cars on display. The one thing in my mind was that it would be good to avoid going to the circuit today, but I realised that the fly in the ointment this year was the drivers parade. For the centenary the ACO had decided to hold the parade at 2:00 pm instead of in the early evening which meant that if we did go into town, unless we decided to stay for the parade, we would need to get away fairly early to avoid the traffic. If I'm honest, I didn't really want to do the parade, although I was conscious that James and Lauren had never been to it. However they didn't seem too bothered about missing it again – next year perhaps?

After going through my usual morning routine we had another WhatsApp dialogue about what to do. We initially agreed to go early into town but when we rendezvoused outside we quickly changed our minds and decided to avoid the town completely and to go and have breakfast instead at the Feuilette. As you will note, we were determined to remain creatures of habit, but when you do things you enjoy, it's only natural to want to do them again, and again...  We had a very good breakfast of coffee and croissants and afterwards we walked up through Arnage village to the local pharmacy so that Lauren could stock up on seasickness remedies for the journey home and I bought three tubes of my ‘dog cream’ to take home. (You will have to read back through my stories of the past few years to understand the significance of this!).

After our little shopping trip we returned to the cars and headed back to the hotel, pausing to stop at Auchan primarily to give Allon the chance to get some provisions. James, Lauren and I bought some snacks in readiness for race day and then we had coffee in the Brioche D’oree there while we waited for Allon to finish his shopping. We got back to the hotel just after midday.

Following our excursions out to Mulsanne and particularly Arnage on Wednesday evening my car was absolutely covered in muck and dust and James kindly offered to give it a wash at the lavage just down the road from the hotel. So we drove on down and half an hour later my car looked as good as new - thanks James! We regrouped outside the hotel at 2:00 having made the decision to go back into the circuit after all to watch the centenary celebration ceremony which we had learned was going to take place on the pit straight from 7:00 pm, including a lineup of many of the cars that were in the centenary exhibition in the museum. We thought that with nothing else on it would be a shame to miss it.

Having had several days of easy drives into the circuit (much easier than I had anticipated), today was no different and we were parked up in Expo by 2:45. We stopped at the ACO stall just along from the entrance and bought centenary T-shirts (a good decision as the queues for all of the ACO shops throughout the weekend were massive...).  As I write this many weeks later I still haven't tried my XXL T-shirt on but James described his XL as being rather ‘snug’, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed. By this point James had noticed that his plastic ticket holder was beginning to split quite badly and worried about losing his ticket he and Lauren went off to source a replacement. It wasn't until I checked later that I realised that my own ticket holder was also starting to split as well, not surprising really as I've been using the same one for many years. I'll need a replacement before Le Mans 2024. While they were off on their quest Allon and I took a stroll around the village. We all met up again at the Toyota Gazoo shop. Lauren had bought a T-shirt there the day before but on opening it discovered that they had given her a polo shirt instead. The exchange was quickly done and James bought one as well.

We hung around the ACO area at La Chapelle thinking of getting something to eat but the fast food on offer didn't appeal so we contented ourselves with just cold drinks. Once we got outside we heard an engine being fired up, but not just any engine, this was the unmistakable sound of a Wankel rotary engine! That could mean only one thing, there was a Mazda 787B around somewhere nearby. Over the years the 1991 race winning car has taken a place in Le Mans folklore as one of the cars that everyone wants to see (and hear) and James was no exception, having never had the chance to see it before. Several of the cars from the museum exhibition including the 787B were assembling in an area quite close to La Chapelle and we stopped there for a while in the hope that they might start the Mazda up again, but no such luck. This was clearly part of the preparations for the ceremony later this evening. It did at least mean that there was a decent chance of seeing the #55 Renown/Charge liveried Mazda on the track later, even if it wasn't being driven in anger.