Le Mans or Bust

5 days of camping, motor sport and beer.

13.06.2007 - 18.06.2007 15 °C
View Le Mans on jefranklin's travel map.

I have just returned from my first visit to the Le Mans 24hr race with a good mate of mine, plus a few of his. I must confess I am not a petrolhead in any shape or form, but the opportunity to spend a week camping with a group of blokes getting merry on beer sounded like too good an opportunity when I agreed to go last June. At the time, the sun was shining as Europe baked itself through one of the hottest summers on records. "Great" I thought, more of that this year...

As the date came closer and closer and the weather got progressively worse; I was seriously contemplating pulling out due to "illness". Nevertheless, on the day we were due to set off, I got in the car. The journey down was uneventful and the weather looked as if it was going to clear up... Fat chance, within 24 hours it was pouring down; by the end of the week our campsite was a swamp (not helped by a farmer pulling out stuck cars with his tractor and chewing up the ground in the process). The rain by itself wasn't too bad, but it was also windy with it - I thought I was going to develop trench foot at one point and I ended up chucking a load of clothing that was damaged by the rain.

Still there was the beer to keep me sane...