Reply to "Le Mans Classic, as I remember it..."

So to Le Mans. Just driving there seeing a French road sign pointing towards “LE MANS” can give me the chills. Le Mans is just so “big”, it’s the home to all sensible car freaks, the track itself, the history, the cars, the noise. Say it: Le. Mans. Simply amazing. Le Mans Classic is a bit different, it’s not as exciting to follow the race(s), but it adds nostalgia, and who’s immune to that? Plus you can spend a day just walking around the camping and parking areas, 9 out 10 cars are classic sports- or musclecar. You’re really among people like yourself, and as opposed to the real Le Mans, most of the drunken primarily British youth (sorry) has stayed home from LMC.

When we arrived there, we came from Le Mans city where the girls did some shopping. They needed some encouragement to keep the spirit up, now that the luxury was over and it was camping the rest of the tour. We were at Maison Blanche, but by mistake (yes really) my GPS got us to the East of the track, so we “had to” drive the entire Mulsanne Straight, Mulsanne corner, Indianapolis, Arnage, up till the Porsche curves where we were led onto the public road, and there was Maison Blanche camping. From Mulsanne corner and on we were almost alone on the track, tempting to go really really fast, but I had my wife/anchor in the car, so I didn’t need the curbs much. Roland B and Andy were behind me, trusting my sense of direction since I’d been there before, they hadn’t, but they got to try a bit of the track, not bad.

When we arrived, before we could get the tents up, people came up to talk. “Normally you don’t see a Pantera all year, and here’s seven!” kinda thing. At this venue you get proper questions, not the questions you get from people at the gas tank: “What does it cost?” “Does it use much gas, he he?” “Must it make that much noise?” People at Le Mans Classic camping know their cars, and that makes it more fun. I sometimes get the impression that they all would rather have a Pantera than whatever they drive, I know I can’t be objective here. But when combining looks, power and costs, is there a better car out there? Don’t think so. Most GT40s are faster, but come up short in the looks department IMHO. Plenty of musclecars there, but they don’t handle as well. Well I’m rambling, regardless, showing up at LMC camping in a Pantera is great…

My wife and I did the traditional “arrive at Le Mans, erect tent, throw everything into the tent, drive to McDonald’s for dinner”. Yes, enough French food for now. We also bought 24 cold beers and took them back to the camp, free beer, if you can’t make friends, you can always buy them, right?. Jill, Hugh and Sue and George had arranged the RV to arrive, so we had very good breakfast and dinner for the next days. Excellent service and food, much appreciated. Indeed very nice people, so nice it more than makes up for their countrymen’s sometimes obnoxious behavior mentioned earlier.

If you don’t like walking, don’t go to Le Mans. There’s so much to see and it’s big. Campsite, parking, shops, paddock, club areas, different viewpoints of the track. Walk walk walk. Bring good shoes, rucksack and umbrella. We had paddock tickets for the first time, and I walked most of the paddocks with Mike. I thought he knew all about Panteras, but it seemed he knew all about all the cars there. Impressive. Except Panhards, he said that he didn’t know anything about them. Looking at them, I wondered why there were at Le Mans Classic at all. But they’re French, so of course…

Training started, so we found a seat. Simply great to see all those old cars running, and they do not hold back. Even the multimillion $ cars were used to the full, wet track and all. There was one Pantera in the paddock, but I only saw it on the track briefly, not sure what had happened. To me the most beautiful cars besides Panteras were the early Lolas. The best sounding were the GT40s and Cobras. One Cobra had some problems in the turns, but accelerating up the main stretch it was like seeing a movie at fast forward. There were also many Lotus’es and some Porsche 917s. But come see for yourself…

The next morning, it was time for parade laps. There was a GTO session with 23 of the 39 produced GTOs on the track! And then it was time for parade laps for paying spectators. I did that 2 years ago. This year, with twice the HP, I thought best not to. Some people out there thinks it’s a race, and just like the regular Le Mans where several Ferraris with “gentlemen drivers” were involved in crashes, some modern Ferraris were apparently racing not caring about their own cars (up to them), but also created dangerous situations for other people, right in front of where we sat.

During the race, some stayed up and saw most of it. We could walk 200 meters from our tent and see the track. That of course also made sleeping a bit hard. Remember ear plugs.

The Pantera in the picture below should have been centered, but it was simply too fast...