Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Le Mans

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Le Mans

    Le Mans

    As several other members have been to Le Mans I thought it might make sense to have a separate thread for Le mans over the years that anyone can add their experience/photos to :

    Le Mans 2013 : Mike Garner - Part 1

    This weekend has just been incredibly special......wow, how lucky can a man be?



    Three lads from my uni days (I'm 55 today, but it still feels like yesterday that we shared a house together) met up in Le Mans to camp together and watch the race. That was a great prospect in itself, but it just got better and better.
    Maz has been looked upon favourably in his career, and had the opportunity of aquiring an Aston Martin DB9, AND ALSO an Aston Martin Rapide (4 door version of the DB9) which has 4 proper seats, and 500HP under the bonnet!!!!!.

    Just as we are proud to be members of the Marlin Owners Club, so he is with the Aston Martin Owners Club.
    This year is the centenary year for Aston Martin, so of course they are looking for ways to mark the occassion: and what better way than having 100 Aston Martin owners parade their cars around a full lap of Le Mans on Race Day prior to the race!
    Maz obviously jumped at the opportunity, and being a good mate, opted to travel down in his 'family car' Rapide rather than his preferred DB9, just to be able to take his mates for a ride around Le Mans in comfort. So, there we were on Race Day, in car number 48, having a blast around the Full Le Mans circuit in an Aston Martin Rapide - with everyone taking it in turn to gun it down the Mulsanne straight - absolutley brilliant!
    We took the obligatory phone video, and at one point its possible to hear the acceleration make me wince as my internal organs were rearranged into the back of the seat!

    All of this followed another fabulous experience when we were invited to join a calvalcade of special British Classic cars from St. Saturnin in to Le Mans on Friday, which was timed to arrive at Le Mans to watch the Parade de Pilotes.
    They say everyone has 5 minutes of fame - and those two rides in the Aston were truly an experience of a liftetime. The streets were lined 2-3 deep with spectators as we left St Saturnin towards Le Mans, and they would all cheer when Maz carefully pulled up both flappy paddles to engage neutral, and then floor the accelerator - what a cacophony of sound!!!!




    Maz with his Aston Martin Rapide at St Saturnin Classic Car show (approximately 10 miles from Le Mans)



    If anyone is considering going to Le Mans in the future, this is a very good Classic car show to visit on the Friday before Race Day. Well recommended



    The race is truly a test of endurance - its quite weird, watching a race from 3pm to 12pm, going to sleep for 7 hours, and waking up to hear them still lapping round, and then getting back to the stands at 9am, and there is still another 6 hours of racing! Then around 11am you can sense the teams feel they have survived the night, and begin to think about going racing! Unbelivable!!

    Fred and myself on the Start Finish straight



    Lining up for the Parade Lap with the other 99 Astons













    Last edited by Mike; 26-06-13, 11:49 AM.

  • #2
    Re: Le Mans 2013 Part 2




    Alfa Romeo 8C - winner in 1931/2/3/4 : Often cited as the inspiration behind the Marlin design



    The winning Audi No.2 car co-driven by Alan McNish


    Pit Lane Access on Firday am







    It is comforting to see that these are just glorified kit cars really!!



    All 5 of the Astons had their engines out of the car as we walked through the pits on Friday morning






    Sadly the weather, which had been very showery on small localised parts of the circuit, (and made for exciting unpredictable racing), played havoc with braking points and general car control, and within 15 minutes of the start had led to an accident which claimed the life of one of the Aston Martin GTE Am drivers. A true reminder of how dangerous motor sport is.
    Although Aston Martin Racing were encouraged by Alan Simonson's family to continue racing it cast a long shadow over their, and our, weekend. And the finally irony was the showery weather then robbed the Astons of victory in the GTE Pro class as, first the race leader crashed in car 97 with only a couple of hours to go, and finally their car 99 lost out in the last hours under Safety Car conditions, and then a final shower, allowing Porsche to take a One -Two, with Aston coming third - shame: the win would have been the icing on the cake.

    Finally, as another pleasant little surprise I spotted a Marlin Roadster parked up in our camp site:

    Marlin at Le Mans 2013:





    It is owned by an MOC member (Mr Kenyon?), and had been driven down to Le Mans by his son, (M? - sorry I am dreadful remembering names), and is used once a year to go hill climbing in the South West.
    Last edited by Mike; 26-06-13, 11:48 AM.

    Comment


    • #3
      Re: Le Mans 2013 Part 2

      Good idea Mike, didn't mean to hijack the build thread.

      Adrian

      Comment


      • #4
        Re: Le Mans 2013 Part 2

        Originally posted by listerjp2 View Post
        Good idea Mike, didn't mean to hijack the build thread.

        Adrian
        Hi Adrian

        No problem.

        Love the idea of taking a van down to keep the beer in. We took a mini fridge on the back seat of my car, and a portable battery that only kept it going for 2 days, so the van idea is great.
        Who drew the short straw and had to drive it? Or did you share the drive down and back?



        Mike
        (Would you like to copy your Le Mans thread to this one?)

        Comment


        • #5
          Re: Le Mans 2013 Part 2

          We had a youngster who's van it was and although he loved Classic Le Mans, he was more interested in the beer.

          To copy my thread to this one?

          How do I do that?

          Adrian

          Comment


          • #6
            Re: Le Mans 2013 Part 2

            Originally posted by listerjp2 View Post
            We had a youngster who's van it was and although he loved Classic Le Mans, he was more interested in the beer.

            To copy my thread to this one?

            How do I do that?

            Adrian
            Adrian

            I'm sure there is a better way, but I just copied the body of my thread in my Build Diary in the usual way by highlighting the whole lot, then opened a reply to this thread and pasted the lot (text and photos) as one block copy. Very straight forward.

            The only problem I had was that it will only allow 10 photos per thread, so I had to make a Part 2 - strange since it let me add 19 photos under the original Build Diary thread?

            Mike
            Last edited by Mike; 26-06-13, 04:08 PM.

            Comment


            • #7
              Re: Le Mans 2013 Part 2

              OK Here we go

              John Brice and myself have been numerous times in our Marlins. Last year we went to the Le Mans Classic which is like Le Mans use to be 10 years ago. We even went into the Pits and spoke to a lot of the Drivers during the race. Some pictures attached.



              As you can see we went with a few mates with a MK1 E Type, Stag, 2 Marlin Roadsters (Mine and John's), S2000 and a Berli.

              The Van held all the big stuff and was wired so we had a fridge for the bear over the 4 days.

              Adrian

              Comment


              • #8
                Re: Le Mans 2013 Part 2

                It worked.

                Thanks Mike.

                Adrian

                Comment

                Working...
                X