Endurance – racing and riding

Le Mans is the most frustrating racing circuit I’ve ever been to. Perhaps it’s not like this for MotoGp or for the cars, but for the Motorcyle World Endurance it was crazy. None of the main entrances were open and there were no car parks. Like, none.

When we arrived on the Friday we decided to head over to the circuit to see Steve. Easy, right? Our hotel was at the bottom of the Mulsanne Straight – no more than 2 miles from the circuit. So we jumped back on the bike, expecting to be able to go to the main entrance, park up in the car park and buy a ticket. Oh My Days. Firstly, not one of the main entrances was open – the one off the motorway was coned off and the one we found was an entrance to the campsite only. We drove round in big circles, getting increasingly more frustrated and using increasingly ridiculous bad schoolgirl French to get directions!

Finally, we worked out that the bike had to be parked in the car park for camping and that there was an almost hidden entrance we could buy tickets at and walk through. We walked under some tunnels and alongside the track and eventually found the paddock and met Steve, who walked us in. Time for a quick brew and a catch up on the news and we headed back to the bike and the hotel, for some much needed food and a glass (bottle) of wine (or two). Perfect, and we assumed that the main entrance and car park would be open on race day.

We slept in and missed breakfast, so decided to wander over the road where there was a supermarket, and get some bits to have a picninc in the park. We bought a local ‘delicacy’ which we think was called ‘marmit’ – but to be fair, it could have been called anything. It turned out to be some cold vegetables and a chicken and bacon type mayonniase salad. We think. It was ok, but mostly sitting in the park, eating weird food with a plastic fork in the sunshine after riding an epic ride and with a motorcycle race ahead of us was just about perfect.

So, the plan was, get to the circuit ahead of the start, which was at 3pm. We set off, confident we could get in to the circuit car park, so we headed again for the main entrance. Still closed. On race day. Back round in circles, we eventually worked out that most people were parking on the street/pavement a little down the road. So we did that. Not so easy to manouvre that enormous bike in between cars but got there in the end. We were parked. We were in the circuit. Success!

We had tickets to get into the circuit and grandstand seats so we were not really expecting to get into the paddock again. However, Steve managed to sneak out  a couple of passes and we were in. ‘Would you like to see the bikes?’ Errr…YEAH! We were in the garage and on the pitlane at Le Mans. Seriously super-impressive.

As the race start got nearer the crowd filled out in the stands and the atmosphere started to change in the garages, as it always does. The starting boys went out to the grid and then suddenly there was an open grid gate in front of us. We stuck our heads down and walked out…onto the starting grid at Le Mans. WOW! It’s almost like an ampitheatre, with the crowd and bike noise being amplified.

Seeing the Le Mans start at Le Mans was special, especially seeing it from pitlane. We slipped out of the paddock after that and had a wander around and then made our way up to the stands to watch Steve, who was out third for the team.

A bit later we went back to the hotel for dinner, decided to sleep and set the alarm for 4.30am to go back to the track. We were back for 5am. Everyone was tired, but Steve and Caroline were still in really good spirits. Once again we were lucky to get into the garage and see a night-time changeover from the perfect viewpoint. Totally fantastic – the highlight of the weekend.

We stuck around for a while then decided to get on the road home. We had a long journey and back to work tomorrow, so unfortunately we couldn’t stay until 3pm, when the race finished. No only that, but rain was forecast and we were a bit knackered.

The journey home was a bit wet and windy, some hairy moments over the long viaducts with the cross-winds and we were glad to see Calais and the train terminal. We even arrived home in time for a glass of wine and an evening. Tiring but fantastic weekend.