If you thought that War and Peace was a good book but a little short, then this is for you. It is kind of long, but there were SOOO many adventures on our trip that it was hard to condense it. I actually kind of crunched the last couple of days just to keep the length from getting completely unreasonable… so it’s a sampling of some of our adventures:
Planning began 9 months ago, beginning with the rough intinerary. We selected the primary destinations, then began looking for hotels that would fit the bill. They needed to be large enough to be able to hold our entire group under the same roof, needed to have a large and secure parking lot, and should be hotels with character. The World Wide Web is a wonderful invention, and makes these sort of searches possible from the comfort of your own living room.
Fast forward to last week… After months of anticipation, the date had finally come. The 3rd semi-annual Loire Valley and Le Mans Classic tour! Amaya and I began packing the Pantera Friday night, and quickly realized that we had a problem. In past years we had easily (well, more or less easily) been able to pack clothes for 2 people for 10 days, a tent, two sleeping bags, two air mattresses, a propane tank, a camp stove coffee machines, pots, pans, and just about everything but the kitchen sink. This year it was much more difficult. The extra tent I planned to bring for Gray Gregory would have to stay home, but as a bonus we did have 10 solar powered garden lights and a Pittsburgh Steelers’ garden gnome to make our campsite a little more like home. I’m not sure how much consolation that was to Gray but we had a festive campsite!
We left Saturday morning and aimed for Normandy. The drive up was long and uneventful, and after 10 hours of driving time we pulled into our fantastic hotel to find nearly everyone waiting for us. Many old friends from our Le Mans trip two years ago as well as many people I only “knew” from Internet. As this was a DeTomaso event, we began in the parking lot looking at cars, which is pretty much how every such event begins. We had quite a selection – early model Panteras, late model Panteras, Roland Jaeckel’s Lonchamps from Germany… Mikael and Helen Hass came from Denmark in their beautiful Pantera, Thomas Tornblum and Tomas Gunnarsson shared the latter’s Pantera… Johnny Woods and Gaenor were there in Johnny’s superlative Pantera GTS, as immaculate and perfect as always. Gudmond and Laddawan Froiland came from Norway in their pristine GTS. Roger and Thelma Brotton in their GT5-S, and Geoff Peters in his powerhouse GT5 lightweight conversion. Roger Coates’ Pantera GT5-S was still in parts in England so he roughed it in his new Bentley. George Gordon Smith arrived in his very smart MGB, which looks perfectly stock except for a slight bulge in the front hood and a little “V-8” badge on the rear trunk indicating that the original 4-cylinder motor has been assigned other duties. Kjetil Finne had planned to drive his supercharged Pantera down as he did 2 years ago, but found that his engine made Bad Noises caused by a fistfull of connecting rods sticking out the side of his engine block (!!) so he and Lisa made the trip by plane and rental car. Sigbjorn Eskeland’s Pantera wasn’t ready, and he couldn’t get the registration sorted out on his Caterham in time so he drove from Norway to England on his Ducati for Goodwood, then took the ferry over and followed us around on two wheels. Julian Kift and his brother Richard were in Richard’s Honda, Mike Drew, Lori Albino, and Gray were all in a rental station wagon, and Jim Reardon and Scott Couchman had a rental Mercedes minivan thing. In all, we had attendees from the US, Norway, Sweden, England, Ireland, Germany, Denmark, and Spain. Eight nationalities in all looking forward to a week of relaxation, sightseeting, and chamaraderie.
Dinner was traditional french cuisine, and was really very good. Gray, Amaya and I sampled wines from the Bourgogne region, then decided to contrast that with one from the Bordeaux region. Still unsure of the best selection, the next night would allow us to try one from the Loire, and then return to the Bourgogne, just to see if it was as good as it was the previous night…
The drive up had been a long day for everyone, so the next day we got a leisurely start to visit Mt. Saint Michel. I had called ahead and they were expecting us – we left the “Mortal People Parking Area” and were escorted to the “Maritime Parking”, which was right at the base of the monument. Mt. Saint Michel is really an abbey built in top of a mountain and fortified throughout the middle ages, and is nearly completely surround like water. It rises like a volcano out of the flat seabed, and twice a month it would be completely cut off from land if not for the raised entry road. The parking lots are completely submerged during these times. But today the tide was out, and the parking lot was full of DeTomasos. We organized the cars as best we could (which actually wasn’t very organized) and took some pictures. This place is a little special to me because the day I picked my former ’72 Pantera up from the docks in France after having it shipped over from the US in 1997 I stopped by Mt. Saint Michel to take a quick picture of the car with the monument in the background. I would never suspect that 13 years later I’d be taking pictures of my GT5-S with 10 other DeTomaso cars in nearly the same place.
We headed in to visit, and wound our way up the narrow, curving streets taking in the sights. We visited the abbey on the top and took an audioguide tour that explained what we were seeing. It’s amazing to think that monks or monk-slaves or whoever carried so much rock up to such heights so long ago…. But then again they didn’t have the World Wide Web or DeTomasos so I guess they needed something to occupy their time.
Back in the parking lot, Stephen Burke from Ireland had joined us in his Ford GT. The obligatory pictures were taken, Stephen let me sit in it and make “vroom vroom” noises, and we could see one up close for the first time for many of us. It is a beautiful car and appears both well finished and comfortable, although luggage space limited you basically a set of undies and perhaps a pair of socks I think, and the noise, while certainly aggressive, was a little more subdued than on a Pantera. It did have a fantastic finish, and lots of little details that made it quite a unique car.
After seeing the sights, we headed for a town near the hotel and were greated by a sort of psychodelic experience… there were American flags draped everywhere, dixie bands playing, covered wagons being pulled by horses with cowboys at the helm… A stretch limo with American flags whooshed by… what kind of time/distance warp have we stumbled upon? Why are the Indians speaking French? The answer was because this particular town has a festival the first Sunday of July every year, and since the first Sunday was July 4th, they decided to pull out all the stops and celebrate the American Independence Day! We saw gangsters, speakeasy houses, music from the 50’s, Jazz from the 20s, it was really pretty neat!
We headed back to the hotel, had a large and cold beer which was truly appreciated after the sweltering heat of the day. Lewis Evans and his girlfriend Sarah had arrived in their Aston Martin, so we looked at his 6-liter V-12 in the parking lot while enjoying our beer. We had feared rain, and while we were lucky in that we only saw an occasional cloud it was perhaps a little on the warm side of the comfort zone for much of the week, with rather frequent forays into the red zone…
The next day we had a full agenda, so we got up early and headed out. A group of us went to visit the WWII D-day sites – beginning at the American Cemetary at Omaha Beach. The cemetary can’t fail to impress, as there are nearly 10,000 Americans who never made it home from THEIR trip to France, although I think that the cemetary that Amaya and I saw 3 years ago was more moving. There were more tourists here, so it felt a little more like a tourist attraction than the other one, which was off the beaten path, more isolated and lonely. But we could stand on the overlook and lookto the right right and see Omaha beach and think about all that happened there so long ago, and then look left and see the result… It all seemed so peaceful that it was really hard to imagine the Inferno that this place must have been.
From Omaha beach, we went to Pointe Du Hoc. This was a little peninsula with sheer cliffs on three sides that housed some monster German guns. The area was heavily shelled before D-Day, and the entire site is just one series of craters after another, a testament to the effects of the aerial bombing. A group of US rangers somehow scaled the sheer cliffs despite the heavy German resistance, although upon reaching the cliff summit they found that the guns that had been stationed there had been moved. Oops. Undeterred, they went in search of them, located them despite the fact that they were well hidden, and destroyed them. The actual cliff that was scaled was closed as they were doing restoration work to prevent the sea from carrying away this important part of history, but we could visit the German bunkers which were all still there and in remarkable shape. It was easy to imagine the german soldiers standing guard here – sleeping in these bunkers under concrete and behind thick, steel doors, listening to the bombs falling all around, perhaps sitting in complete darkness waiting to see if the next bomb would be a direct hit or not… Scary times.
The last destination in this area was the town of Saint Mere Eglise. This was the first French town liberated, and is known for the paratrooper drop on the night before D-day. The movie “The Longest Day” features this town prominantly, and specifically the paratrooper who was trapped on the church steeple when trying to land. He saw how the remainder of his group was picked off by German sharpshooters, so he played dead while hanging from the steeple until he could be rescued. There is a mannequin hanging from a parachute from the church steeple to commemorate this event, and a rather neat aviation museum is located right next door.
We had sort of a long drive ahead of us, so we headed out with Tomas Gunnarsson and Thomas Tornblum in Tomas’ Pantera in tow to head for the Loire Valley. It was a long but uneventful drive to the Hotel de France in La Chartre sur Loir. This hotel is historically significant, as in the 50’s it was used by the Aston Martin team preparing for Le Mans. There were numerous photos on the walls of Astons parked on the street in front of the hotel, and a picture of a rather young driver by the name of Carroll Shelby, playing cards with another young driver named Sterling Moss (when he was just “sir” instead of “Sir”) at the same outdoor table that we used for our drinks. Shelby would return here in the 60s with his team, and John Wyer (of the Aston Martin team) would return here as well with the Ford GT40 teams. We saw pictures of GT40’s parked in exactly the same place we left our cars…
The next morning we headed out for the chateau of Le Lude. Once again they were waiting for us, and opened the doors and let us park inside. We took the obligatory pictures in front of the chateau, this time arranging the cars slightly better that at Mt. Saint Michel, but the creative editors for Road and Track won’t be calling any of us soon I fear. We had a guided tour of the chateau, which is still privately owned and the owners live in one of the wings. We wandered around the fantatic gardens, and then took advantage of the fact that the cars were inside the chateau and protected to walk to the center of town and have lunch.
After lunch, our next destination was roughly an hour away. I was leading a small pack with Geoff Peters behind me, and Jim Reardon and Scott Couchman bringing up the rear in their rental car. The backroads were fantastic – some straights where you could really stretch your legs, some curvy bits covered with trees, and then another straightaway. We were making, um, excellent time. It was about halfway down one of those straightaways that out of the corner of my eye I saw a couple of police cars parked, hidden behind a house, and two French cops running. This wasn’t a good sign. At our current speed, if they were in cars they would probably never catch us, but I saw two motorcycle cops pull out and began to slow down.
They waved Geoff and me over and the conversation began very badly.
“Monsieur, are you in a terrible hurry for something?”
I wasn’t sure what the correct answer was…there probably isn’t one.
“Your friend saw you hit the brakes and we clocked him at 131 k/hr in a 90. But you, you were travelling 142 in a 90, which is more than 50% over the speed limit. Your vacation is over. The law calls for mandatory impounding of your car pending trial, and we will take your drivers license. Madame will be driving for your remaining time in France….”
This wasn’t good, and I was honestly afraid. I began explaining what we were doing here – I was leading a group of 38 people from 8 countries who had come to France for vacation… it was something I was looking forward to for a very long time… yes, it was my fault for driving a little fast but it would really bum me out to lose my car for the trip after looking forward to it for so long…
I basically cried on his shoulder, and the more he let me talk the more he could see that I was really a decent guy, and that I promised I would be a little angel for the rest of my time.
While Geoff and I were on the side of the road with the police, various members of our group passed by and could see our little predicament…
I firmly believe that one of the factors that influenced his decision was the fact that I was speaking to him in French (a plus for any foreigner in France), or perhaps it was just my own special sort of lottery ticket, but when he asked “by the way, what kind of cars are you driving?” I began to have a glimmer of hope. This promising beginning evolved into a “What kind of engine, how many hp, what year is it…” and I began to think that perhaps I wouldn’t lose my car after all. In the end he looked left, looked right, and said “I’m going to give you a ticket for the same speed as your friend. You must pay now in cash as you live outside France. And you must obey the traffic laws for the remainder of your trip”.
I have never been so happy to pay a speeding fine in my life!
Geoff and I drove off, a little slower than before, made a quick stop at our original destination for sightseeing, but either it wasn’t as attractive a town as I was expecting or our hearts weren’t in it. We left and headed for the hotel.
People in the hotel were genuinely concerned about us, which was nice. Concerned because they thought we might have to sleep in jail, or because nobody had any idea what the plan was for the next day I’m not sure ;-) We had a well deserved beer, and then headed in for an absolutely fantastic dinner – an excellent duck dish that had been cooking for hours…
Just to show the police that we had learned our lesson the previous day and would fly straight from now own, we headed out the next day for wine tasting at 10am (?!) Wine tasting and driving… hmm… whose idea was this? We got off to a rather slow start as I made sure that everyone had the address of the first vineyard programmed into their GPSs. We had to go through town and I was sure that we’d get separated, so I carefully programmed everyone’s GPS and then took off.
The plan would have worked fine if the address I had programmed had actually been that of the vineyard instead of an industrial park! We saw members of our group crossing left, right, up, and down as they had no idea what to do now… Having realized my mistake, I headed for the correct address, and once verified that the second address was in fact where we were heading I began calling members of the group and giving them the new address.
The group slowly began arriving – the vineyard owner was thrilled to see us and had found the DeTomaso logo on the Internet and had hung out little flags to welcome us! We sampled a white wine, then headed for the underground caves to see the storage area… the entire 100km around Saumur is full of caves that were made-made – the stone was used to build many of the chateaux that line the region. We had a red, then decided that after our encounter with the law two glasses was probably sufficient and moved on.
After lunch we had our second wine tasting session in a different vineyard – this one offered 2 whites, a rosé, and three reds.. Much as it pained us, we were reponsible and the majority of each glass ended up being dumped to allow us to drive afterward. Geoff ordered three cases to be shipped to England, and we all bought a few bottles to bring to Le Mans.
We headed for the last hotel of the pre-Le Mans trip.. the spectacular Chateau de Razay – a 15th century chateau in the middle of a forest on 35 hectares. I was looking forward to seeing this place and it was truly spectacular. It was also truly bizarre. When I booked the hotel I was informed that they didn’t have a restaurant, so I had arranged for a catering service to come. What they didn’t mention was that they didn’t have a BAR either, which aside from tarnishing the luxury image that the chateau offered upon arrival, was also a spectacularly poor business decision. The chateau is in the middle of nowhere, so people will, by definition, come from far away. They typically cater to wedding receptions, retreats, and the occasional DeTomaso outing. All of these social occasions would be a golden opportunity to sell a few beers as people celebrate and enjoy their time together. The manager told me “but monsieur, you didn’t request for a bar service to be set up….” I was a little dumbfounded as it never would have occurred to me that in this day and age a bar service wasn’t an intergral part of any hotel worth its salt..
So we went to plan “B”. Gray Gregory and Geoff Peters set off for the nearest town and came back with every single cold beverage in their cooler. They were our heroes!
Once over the initial shock of being thirsty, the chateau itself was very nice. It was reasonably priced for the setting, had a pool, all kinds of animals (peacocks, pot bellied pigs and baby pigs, horses, llamas, etc), and was an absolutely spectacular setting. The caterer began setting up for dinner on the outside patio and we had dinner under the stars.
Before setting off from Spain, Amaya and I had prepared some awards for the last night of the pre-Le Mans trip. We prepared an award for the longest distance driven, and an award for the longest distance travelled (the longest distance driven award was controversial, as we prepared the awards 2 weeks ahead of time. We learned that Kjetil and Lisa had flown down and were travelling in a rental car because their engine grenaded the week prior to the meeting. But they got the award anyway because they WOULD have driven it had that not happened… and because their names were already printed on the award!) There was the “Christopher Columbus “I can reach the East by sailing West” award for creative navigation that was inspired by Geoff Peters in 2008, when he was following his GPS and we came upon a road closed due to construction… He turned right, his GPS suggested three right turns and we were right back where we started from. He tried left, and his GPS suggested three lefts and there we were again… We went through the center of that town no fewer than FIVE times before finally escaping and continuing on our route). This year the award went to Scott Couchman who lost a fight with HIS navigation device, and what took most of the group an hour and twenty minutes (respecting the speed limits like a little angel I might add!!!) took him 3 or 4 hours. At least he had nice scenery!
The “Superman” award for service above and beyond the call of duty went to Gray Gregory for going on a beer run for 38 thirsty people at the same chateau!
As this was a DeTomaso event, we brought a “Hard Luck” award; something we hoped we wouldn’t be able to award to anyone… Who to give it to? Kjetil because his engine blew up the previous week? He already had an award. Roger Brotton because his Pantera was in a million pieces and he had to come in his new Bentley? Doesn’t seem really the, um, spirit of the award. So it was given to Geoff Peters, who had the bad luck of following me on a certain French backroad, somewhat over the speed limit, and as a result got to do his part to reduce the French national budget deficit.
We also took the opportunity to induct two people into the club that organized this whole affair – the DeTomaso Club of Spain. The DeTomaso Club of Spain is a somewhat tongue-in-cheek organization that has a logo, a lot of enthusiasm, and two members – me and Amaya! When we began making noise a few years ago that the Club was a “serious” thing and talking about how much fun we had in our club meetings, George Gordon Smith of England said it sounded like fun and wanted to join. So we inducted him as an honorary member and made him VP of the English chapter. We also inducted, on the behalf of all the European owners, Mike Drew as the International Ambassador and VP of parts procurement. It was a fitting award, as nearly every DeTomaso in attendance had at least one part that had passed through his hands, and he was the common link between the attendees present. Another award to induct an actual, live Spaniard with a real Pantera into the club would have to wait, as Fernando Bianchi had to cancel at the last minute and didn’t come with us.
The group was kind enough to present Amaya and me with a fantastic coffee table book of Mont Saint Michel, signed by all the participants and even included a great portrait of Amaya and me drawn by Gaenor. It was a really nice touch and unexpected, but we’ll smile every time that we look at it.
The next morning we had a leisurely breakfast and then headed for our last group destination – the chateau of Chenonceau. Part of the façade was under construction, but it is still a fantastic place to visit. We had lunch, and then headed out for the nominal destination of all this – a little place called Le Mans!
At Le Mans, we had a block of 21 campsites reserved together… Some people from the tour headed for hotels, the English headed for “their” hotel to the north of the city of Le Mans, and we headed for campsites that are literally 100 meters from the racetrack. We met up with some people who weren’t on the tour – Andreas Imhoff from Germany in his Pantera with a friend of his in his GT40, Robert Brown in his ’53 Jaguar Special, and Roel Pollen from Holland in his DeTomaso Deauville. We set up camp and then Amaya and I went grocery shopping, returning with coffee, croissants, and beer. Ah, Le Mans!
We headed into Arnage for dinner, which is sort of a tradition. We like to sit at an outside table and watch the parade of cars as they arrive for Le Mans classic. Ferraris, Lotus, Bentley, Morgan, the variety is simply mind-boggling. We saw Colin Bradshaw, who left his Pantera GT5-S home in favor of his Morgan Aero-8, a truly funky car if ever there was one. Service at the restaurant was reasonable considering the fact that they were at 200% capacity, but the weather was fantastic, the sights and sounds were great, and we were enjoying the company so it was just about right.
The next day George prepared bacon and eggs (ah, yes, we had also purchased eggs the previous day… see – it was healthy shopping!) Nothing tastes better than coffee, bacon and eggs in a campsite. The day was promising to be hot, and it was blistering! There was really little shelter from the sun all weekend. Unfortunately most people suffered the same sort of phenomenon – it was so hot that you ended up exhausted and just wanted to find a little spot of shade and sit there, but we plodded on. We began with a visit to the paddock area. In Plateau 5 we saw the orange Pantera that had such limited success two years ago – it appeared that they had learned from their experience and they had much better luck this year.
Heading to Plateau 6 we saw that there was trouble in paradise. There were 4 Group 4 Panteras – two Factory group 4 cars and two conversions. Pat Hals had a brake problem and needed a clutch master cylinder, which he uses as a brake master cylinder. Phil Stebbings and I made some calls – we knew that Roger Brotton had such a beast, but he was alone in the hotel and wasn’t answering his phone… So we made some calls and arranged for someone to call the hotel and send someone to look for him. We looked at the other cars in the area – it was nirvana! There are some really special cars every year, and being able to see them up close is such a great experience.
We went to the track and watched qualifying for the various groups… We were lucky enough to find a spot in the shade, made ourselves comfortable.
The next day was something I had been looking forward to for some time – laps on the actual track of Le Mans! My family gave me a pass for Christmas (however did they know??? ;-) ) So we got up early, had some coffee and croissants, and headed for the track with Mikael Hass, who had the same slot as we did. While waiting in line for our slot I couldn’t help but think about what a moneymaking machine these track laps are. Roughly €150 per car, and there were perhaps a hundred cars in our group. Every 30 minutes, another hundred cars. Cha-ching! But what an experience.
I was staged behind a bunch of Austin Healeys. Eventually it was our turn and we were waved onto the track… “Allez! Allez!” we were urged to hurry up. We made a couple of sharp turns, and there we were on the main straightaway with the stands on both sides! Foot to the floor and work through the gears. The echo off the stands was simply amazing – the Pantera out-shouted the group of Austins easily, and their engines were simply no match on the straightaway and we blew by them by the dozens. That was neat. Then we caught the pace car. That was not so neat.
We later realized that the pace car was taking a leisurely first lap so that we could “get familiar” with the track. But we thought that the pace car pace was boring, so we pulled over and let the whole field by. We waved to Mikael Hass… We waved to Roland Jaeckel in his Longchamps GTS. We waved to everyone. Then we headed back out to play catch-up. I decided that catch-up was a lot of fun.
It was hard not to think about the history of the roads we were travelling… to think about THIS Mulsanne straight, about THIS chicane… we got some pretty good speed up on the straights! And my nice, clean white rims were incredibly dirty after only 3 laps due to brake dust. All too soon it was over (no, we didn’t catch the pace car again) and we were shooed off the track.
We parked in the club area and were pleased to see around 25 DeTomaso cars in attendance. 2 Mangustas from England, a Pantera Si targa (that’s something you don’t see every day since there are only 4 in the world)… We left the car there and headed back to the paddock area. The blue-and-white Group 4 replica had somehow lost his rear decklid during qualifying (which must have given quite an impression to whoever was following him!) and they had found it and were reattaching it. It was in surprisingly good shape considering that it no doubt flew off at somewhat elevated speed… I was expecting a mangled mess but it didn’t look bad. Pat Hals was optimistic but still having issues.
The heat was nearly unbearable, so we returned to a place we found the previous day that had some delicious and refreshing rosé wine and even better, chairs and shade.
At 5:30, Stephane and Michele Bergeron had organized a reception for the DeTomaso owners back in the club parking area… a huge garbage can had been filled with ice, water, wine, and champagne. A local 6-piece jazz band made an appearance, as did two gendarmes dressed in period clothing and driving period cars. The atmosphere was quite festive and we got a chance to talk with the owners who had travelled from far away. It was good to see Mats Gorski at the event in his Pantera (perhaps the highest mileage Pantera in existance?). Kjell Isebjorn’s GT5-S caught fire less than an hour into his trip (??!!!) most likely due to a misfunctioning Weber carberator. If not for the quick action of the Panteras behind him with their fire extinguishers, the car might have been completely lost. As it was, the rear was just a little black, but it wasn’t clear whether that was due to the fire or due to a fuel mixture issue which may have been a cause of the problem in the first place.
When the reception began winding down, Amaya and I headed into Arnage to have dinner. This was a phenomenal mistake, as the restaurants were horribly overwhelmed. The Thursday night service was slow but constant –however this night after an hour and fifteen minutes waiting for our first course, we just got up and walked away. By now the other restaurants were no longer accepting new customer due to the hour… We spotted Julian and Richard Kift sitting inside an open restaurant – they told us the wait wasn’t too bad so in we went to at least eat something.
We went back to our campsite to find that our Pittsburgh Steeler gnome was missing – and a note was in its place in Spanish. Apparently the gnome was bored and left a note to say he was going into town to look for some action. We woke up the next day to find the gnome lying down under a pile of empty beer bottles with another note – he said he had a good time, hic, but was a little tired and was going to sleep it off.
After another leisurely breakfast of bacon, eggs, coffee and toast we began breaking camp. Our tent was one of those 2-second tent deals, where you take it out of the bag, remove a strap, and a fully assembled tent literally springs to life. Getting said fully assembled tent to un-spring was considerably more complicated. Thomas Tornblum and Tomas Gunnarsson were crucial interpreting the useless directions, Colin Bradshaw helped by laughing at us and taking pictures, and after a good 15 minute struggle of the wits with a piece of canvas, we eventually beat it into submission. We loaded the car, and then headed to the track to watch more racing.
We watched the plateau 5 and 6 cars compete, and then headed for home around 1:30pm. I had to get up at 5am the next day to go to Poland for work, Spain was playing the finals of the World Cup that night, and the previous week wasn’t exactly what I’d call restful, although it was a blast. Slightly more conscious of the speed limits than on our trip up, we made the 8 hour drive back to Vitoria, Spain with no problems. Traffic was light, the A/C worked well, for a Pantera, and we rolled into our driveway just as the second half of the game was getting underway.
All in all it was a fantastic trip from our perspective. We had no rain, we found some lovely hotels and ate quite well. The only mechanical problem was Mikael Hass’ clutch master cylinder that acted up, but Mike Drew just happened to bring a spare, brand new master cylinder for Roland so we were covered. Le Mans Classic was sensory overload, as there is simply too much to see in the 3 full days that we were there. The only real solution is to go back in 2012 and try to see more. I think we just might have to do that!
IN case you haven’t seen them, pictures may be found here: http://www.poca.com/index.php/...ery/?g2_itemId=23796
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