Club Arnage

I'm sure someone will beat this but.....
Left home 5.45 am for porstmouth. 7am on the m27 nr winchester the jensen conked out. Bad, but not as bad as when a van careered into us shortly afterwards and didn't stop. So, AA back to swindon, get a call to say someone has walked into a police station to admit hitting us, unload the interceptor, load up the cayenne, just off now to give a statement to the local police, and then off for le mans again.
So if you see some twats looking like extras from footballers wives poncing round LM in a black porsche cayenne don't be to harsh on them.....it might be us and we have had a reasonably hard le mans so far, what with it only being Thursday and all!
Enjoy

Oh dear, that sounds like the least someone needs now. I hope the Jensen is not  looking to badly. Good luck with your second attempt.

Only me again. Got half an hour up the M4 before realising we had no documents for the porker :'( - back home now, setting off again shortly.
Keep smiling ;D

You might make it in time for Le Mans 2006

They did get there eventually and realised when they were docking in at Caen that the camping pass was still in the window of the Jensen! I have heard from them today and they were able to buy another pass from someone and are now having a great time!  from the wife..

OK, this is now the Official Tales of 2005 Thread.

Where to start?

Well at the start I guess. Arrival at Le Mans, somewhat later than plan, on Sunday evening. Thanks to the wonders of technology I knew that others had made it onto Maison Blanche. By the time I got there they'd installed a (rather attractive) jobsworth on the site who definitely couldn't be persuaded to let me on site.

So Brian says Try the Karting Nord entrance.

So off I trek. When the ACO guard on the entrance asked if I was for Maison Blanche I thought I was about to get turned away. But he let me in!

So, round the left perimeter of the kart track, along the side of the track then ONTO THE TRACK!!!

I've never driven that part of the track before, what with it being private. I wonder how many other people have towed a caravan there too??? :) :)

By the time Brian arrived at the trackside to show me where to get in, I was down by the grandstands!!! So I had to do it again, against the "traffic".

Small downside was catching the side of the 'van on the metal gatepost but the damage was light...

When they have the 24h du Caravan Luggers I won't have to qualify!!! :)

From Swindon!!!!! you only had to ask, had plenty of room and also left on thurs  :-\

Well, this goes into the books... thanks for sharing huggybear... good wife.

That is unlucky!

We made it there and back safely in the £50 Merc, Bobblehat spotted us by the allotments near the porker curves and BSJ and said hi which was nice, just before we set off for a night in Rouen.

Sunday morning was good, 2 of us managed to get press passes and went to the top of the main grandstand, and got in the pits for a good mooch, and even got to be in one of the team garages during a pit stop, all very exciting. Photos and reports to follow.

Hope everyone else made it back in OK?

The Fred Dibnah memorial tour got off to a shaky start...nothing quite so unfortunate here, but we arrived at the Pompy Dock to get a call that we'd left one of the mountain bike seats in the street when we left... fortunately that was only a 15 minute round trip to make the ferry so no real drama.

...the drama came on Friday night after the Drivers parade... it was gone midnight, we were pretty well hammered and made our way back to where we locked our bikes up. By the time four of our five had found it, we were completely unaware that our number 5 was missing in action. A few attempts to locate him failed and our spirits were a little down when it transpired a French student who had joined us for most of the evening had stumbled across our fallen soldier in the main square just spaced out - half a bottle of wine in his hand and only just able to walk!

Following a couple of attempts to put the soldier on his bike failed with some very poor demonstrations of balance, some disagreements with the laws of gravity and some messy bike-chain arguments we had to bundled him onto a cab I escorted him back to base camp. We couldn't leave a man down in the field after all!

I've never seen somebody looking so rough in the morning in all my days! Although the 38 degrees in his tent for most of the morning probably didn't help him much.

On to better things... Sunday, Fathers Day, and 4 of us opening the cards/gifts from our little ones. then came the big surprise... In one of the most generous gestures I've know, Gaz had booked all of us in for one of the Helicopter flights!! Absolutely fantastic! Seeing the cars flying down the Mulsane going even faster than the chopper was fantastic!

HA roundabout on Sunday night saw a £750 firework display, all set up under the lampposts and trees for maximum danger factor! Thanks to those guys for an excellent display!

We made it back! Thankfully no cruel jibes about the Cayenne. We put the whole sorry tale behind us and had the most fantastic time.
We think the bumper bollox may have been cursed - they brought nothing but bad luck. My Dad found them most unsavoury from the start - however, with a couple of bottles of champagne inside him we did get some photos - predictable poses that will horrify him now he's sober ( should be sober by now, I think)
As for the jensen - initial problem lay with the injection computer going gobbledeegook - I had it rebooted in 5 minutes and running fine. I can't hold it against the car, the computer that controls my speech, fine motor skills and bad langauge firewall failed on Friday night  - I guess that maybe stella artois related, I'll continue the research! The van driver hadn't gone to the police to admit hitting us, someone out there saw him bounce off us and not stop and reported him - if you're out  there, THANK YOU. He has not produced his documents yet but fingers crossed he's insured. My understanding is that if he isn't insured my fully comp covers me except for the excess and I have to make a case to the MIB (?) to get my no claims re-instated - anyone any wiser? The damage runs full length but we're talking flattened panels rather than ripped metal - not that it will be easy to fix either way. Another THANK YOU to the 996 driver who had a spare BSJ camping permit and sold it at cost. THANK YOU also to the wolverhampton boys who helped us put the tent up at 1 in the morning and welcomed us with beer!
Finally, sorry we didn't get to meet more of you but hey, there's always next year, right? ;D

Hay vqdave great to see you too, could you PM me your email and I will email you the stuff about Tom.

one of the many, many best bits has to be the pool filling escapade. Robin brings a pool, but hasent got a clue how big it is or how much it holds. So Friday it gets blown up, and we find its a big one.

The next question how do you fill a pool when the nearest tap is the other side of the campsite. After half an hour of trying to scroung lengthes of hose - but in vain - tom is going up and down on his go-ped with a 5/8ltr water can and with have a small puddle. Peirre manages to scroung a dustbin wich he cleans out, we take the back seats out of a New Beetel Cabro and put dustbin in, drive to tap fill with water, repeat 6- 8 times and hey presto a cooling pool!

So to all those of you who were giving us funny looks in the 3rd field in BSJ (those who were sober enough to notice) that is what we were up to

Here's my Le Mans week

Arrived Monday morning after spending the weekend at a Vintage Slotcar race in Bordeaux
Do usual stuff in the week.
Friday 10 am set off for Paris to catch a flight to Madrid.
Arrive Madrid 5pm, drink and eat for rest of evening in 42degree heat!
Saturday attend a Slotcar show in the morning and race in after noon, more drinks and eats.
Sunday up at 6am for flight back to Paris
Arrive Paris 11am, drive back to Le Mans and sitting in grandstand seat at 1pm, watch end of race.
Drive back to UK on Monday and arrive home at 7pm , 10 days after leaving!!

what a fantastic Le Mans, the T.W.A.T.S. sponsored BAM! Porsche won GT2 ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

highlights:-
Thursday night qualifying
I was wearing  Leo Hindery's race suit lending against the pit wall watching qualifying and going anywhere I pleased :D
BAM! getting pole position :)

Friday
all a blur, was found sleeping on a bank outside camping blue ;)

Saturday
T.W.A.T.S startline banter with everyone, soaking half the crowd with ice cold water from our infamous wheelie bin whilst standing on it. Being on the starting grid for the second year in a row and getting very close to the Hawaiian tropic girls. Shampoo bar of course.

Sunday
Watching from BAM! pit garage, again on pit wall for finish and podium, seeing our boys lifting the GT2 trophy.

PRICELESS


p.s.
Lowlight
getting breathalised Sunday morning when driving to the swimming pool, after such a big day and night I was expecting to visit the local french jail but obviously the meter was not working right becasue it recorded 0.0 on the display  :o :o :o :o

06:00 Wednesday - welded up split sump of one of the cobras
10:00 Wednesday - it pisses down, not too amusing in an open top car
11:00 Wednesday - Chevy pickup has a tyre blow out
15:00 Wednesday - rain stops, continue on N138
19:00 Wednesday - arrive at camp site, it pisses down.  Put tents up in the rain
22:30 Wednesday - to the Stella Bar
02:15 Thursday - kicked out of the Stella Bar

later - the SUN came out  ;D

I arrived Saturday morning and Smokie picked me up at Heathrow and took me to an excellent pub/b&b in Wokingham, which I will recommend to anyone (over 35 -- it's a great place for alleged grownups); Saturday night is Karioke night there and you can't even imagine how much fun that was.  I'd go back only for that, even if the other amenities had not been as great as they were.

My race week was a tangle of logistics in connecting up with various gangs of people, but everything went smoothly and didn't meet any really impossible people all weekend.  ;D  Only in the Media Centre, really, where the English translator went home at 22:00 and left the very tired Anglais with what they could see on the screens and puzzle out of the hourly French updates -- a good lesson for all of us, but at 1:30 a.m. it was definitely not fun.  However, we staggered on.

After the race I had to lug my gear from Karting Nord to Pigletville in Maison Blanche, and having been deserted by the crowd of young men with cars where we were camping, this appeared to be a very long trek ahead.  Hitch-hiking did not work; however, a group of 'likely lads' as they called themselves, hiking from the Airtrack site in search of a bar, obligingly helped carry my gear to the front gate where aid appeared in the guise of a French taxi.  I do not think he has ever been greeted with such huzzahs in his life!  Fortunately for him another group at that campsite required a taxi the next morning for a longish trek to Tours, so arrangements were made on the spot for him to return in the morning for them, and he went away wealthier and very pleased, and I had a glass of wine from a sympathetic Piglet and then a shower, popped up my tent and went to bed, deaf to the fireworks everywhere around us.

I too was attacked by the intestinal blight which I am convinced, after hearing from a number of people in our area who had it, was caused by the lack of sanitation provided by the French for the beginning of the weekend.  I predict an epidemic of cholera one of these days.  If I go next year I will get immunized against that eventuality, I think!

I must make mention of my arrival back in London on Monday night.  After Keith dropped me off at Heathrow, I located the Hotel Hopper bus and a bus driver told me (erroneously) that the one I needed had quit for the night.  In search of a taxi for the 5 mile trip, an airport employee steered me to a taxi driver who quoted me $125.00 Canadian for the trip!  Needless to say, I was not about to fall for that -- and the next day I found that the going rate paid by Brits was $30.00.  I lodged a complaint with the airport; working for lawyers means taking note of all the details when you think you have been gouged.  Then off to my hotel, which proved to be a 3 star disaster -- the Quality Hotel had no air conditioning and the room was stifling hot.  The manager, who was Indian, told me that most hotels in London have no air conditioning, regardless of the number of stars; he opened the window, letting in gnats and flies and the full panoply of noise from the venue (no screens in a hotel with no air conditioning -- normal in London too?)  There was also no soap provided, and the high speed internet advertised cost $25.00 extra, which you didn't find out til you signed onto it.

The next morning I met up with a large number of other travellers leaving the hotel early (as I did) who said they had not been informed of any of this either. A group of Australians said they had not slept all night because of the bugs.
 
And to top it off, we missed one of the best F1 races in the calendar!   ;D :o ;D

Last year was my first visit to LeMans and I had a great time in Beausejour campsite, everyone was friendly and accommodating the only problem was I wanted to be nearer the track so at the end of the race we walked down the track to our campsite and I saw these tents right up against the fence and said to my husband that's where I want to be next year.
That turned out to be Karting Nord which I got this year and it was nowhere near as nice as Beausejour as far as the people were concerned.
We arrived on Sunday afternoon and there was only one other camper van set up who were Brits, so far so good. They introduced them selves as the MG Club and gave us a beer and left us to set up our tent.
Everything was fine until the Monday night when on our return to our tent at around 1am after visiting the Liverpool boys there were five guys from the camper van having a few drinks and playing VH1 on the tv very loudly, no problem, until at 3.30am it was still pounding and I had now got a migriane.  We asked them to turn it down, no joy so my husband had to take me to the hospital for some medication.  We returned at 5.30am all was quiet.
When everyone finally rose later that morning my husband went and had words and things got a little heated. From that point on they totally ignored us which was great but on the Sunday night after the race when most of the campers had gone and you could now see grass they had a firework display and guess where they set them off from... yep right by our tent even though there were loads of spaces with no tents to have this display.
This has not put me off LeMans and I have booked for next year but it has put me off Karting Nord as these Brits go every year and camp on KN.

The highlights of the story goes like this:

1  Overtaken by 2 JPC vans on M27
2  Couple of beers on the Normandie
3  Beermountain gone to bed, Team JPC in bogs - give up
4  Rip rear of caravan off on the ramps - resort to gaffer tape
5  Meet rest of team at Auchan
6  Set up at MB with electricity
7  Run in goped
8  Start MB visit - see Paddy building DFH site, offer cold Kanterbraus
9  Commence display routines - crash heavily trying to loop the loop in the Jaguar tunnel - head ribs and bum in poor state
10 Sit still for 5 days
11 Watch others drinking the demon Kronenberg and collecting gravel rash
12 Discover ideal mix of Ibuprofen and Bacardi
13  Come home for a rest

Kinnel Lorry, If your #1 highlight is being overtaken on the M27 by 2 JPC vans what the hell did you get up to the rest of the week? Did you attend the annual meeting of La Sarthe flower pressing society or somethig similar  ;D

I'm afraid Cissie that people like this appear to becoming more and more the norm. We moved from KN after spending the last two years there due to a uneasy air that surrounded the place last year. I still maintain that it stems from the ACO overselling this site. I mean the Danish buses take up a huge area and the rest of us are left to cram into tiny spaces that are left.

Beausejour (where we were this year) was a far friendly atmosphere but does have the disadvantage of a long trek to the track.  I am not sure what to do for next year? Maison Blanche or Houx Annexe, i'm thinking.

I agree Jay BSJ is jusy to far away, though I had never been to the Porshe Curves before. As a result it is MB for us next year, tickets already booked ;D

Team DMC had a great time on our first Le Mans!

Some High Lights included:

Gate Crashing the Classic British Welcome with our 3
DeLoreans.

Meeting up with DeLorean no 4. (Dan) in Arnarge Village
on the Friday Evening. Driving down the main street
with the doors up in convoy. The crowed just went mad
cheering!

Beausejour Campsite initiation as we drove in (the guy's
in the pool with the waterpistols, you know who you are..).

Van Surfing on the Sunday night ;)

The one thing Team DMC is all agreed is will be back next
year!

Well Jay we have booked MB but I doubt if we will be lucky as it seemed full of regulars but I live in hopes.
On KN everytime we went out some one would take down the markers and put up a tent, we ended up with the car being round the next corner totally out of sight! and if you needed to go to the little girls room at night you would end up tripping over a new tent pegor person...

Cissie,

I think you can find noise a problem no matter what site you go to.   But not the aggro side you describe.

A few years ago we were drinking and talking in to the early hours and got asked to shut up and go to bed.  But I think he regretted it as we did what he said but seemed to make more noise snoring.  :)
Even so everyone remained in good humour.

I've been on KN and one of our guys got fed up with the "Thump Thump" music for some pople opposite and set off to talk to them about it.  I ran over and stopped him.  Pointed out it was not a good idea to go over with the carving Knife in his hand.  He came back put the knife down and went back and they did turn it down.
 
I thought BSJ was very quiet this year.  Even so one couple did say that they would be leaving early as it was too noisy for them.   I had warned them that it can be a bit ott.  I think they will be back but staying on a regular camp site away from the Circuit.   I know a couple of guys that do that.
The are real petrol heads and often watch the whole 24 hours.  They don't really like the party side of it.

t.

Lawnmower man I love the noise the cars make so that was not a problem being so close to the track just their music and attitude.  My only consolation was when we arrived at Le Harve monday night to catch the over night ferry they were in the queue waiting for a space which i dont think they got!
I also noticed that KN is not as clean as BJ

Steve............was that your lots Chevvy pick up in the underground carpark in the town centre on Friday.  If so, I was parked almost next to it.  Did you happen top see the yellow Marcos opposite.  Fantastic............

Cissie

On the subject of migraines and Le Mans - I find that it's the stress of getting worked up about the noise that is significantly more likely to cause a migraine than the noise itself (if that makes sense).  

When I'm out there I take my medication at the slightest hint of an episode and I sleep with ear defenders on.  That way only the vibrations from the mortars get through to me and then they only rouse me when they are really close.  My only disappointment is that I then sleep through most of the fireworks and I love fireworks ;D

I don't think you'll find any of the onsite campsites much different to what you experienced this year, MB was at least as loud as Houx last year (granted we didn't have the Danes and their Technotrash this year ;D).  By the sounds of things you'd probably be better on an offsite campsite for the run up to the race.  If you fancy overnighting next to the noise of the cars try and set up a baby tent in one of the normal campsites for racenight.  

TBH it's the noise and atmosphere of the campsites that makes it for me - I love listening to the eclectic mix of music and looking at the weirdo's - it wouldn't be Le Mans without it!  How long is it till next year?  ;D ;D

Only a couple of days left, you can safely go to sleep, we will we wake you when we head back to Le Mans. ;D

Cissie,
Sorry to hear of your unfortunate neighbors, we were at KN last year and where as our immediate neighbors were great typical Le Manners, there did seem to be a higher hooligan element. Compared to Camping Blue where we were in 03 it was not as friendly and of course compared to MB this year it did not compare.
AS for the noise, LM is never going to be quite but the vast majority would have appreciated your request especially at 3.30. We were right next to DFH and their speaker system so did not think sleep until exhaustion was going to be an option anyhow. Apparently before we got there on the Wed night somebody asked them to quiten down at around 3.00 - no problem, they did. Also heard that sombody complained to the ACO on Friday night(?) and they (the ACO) got a bit stroppy, but again they just shut it down - guess somepeople find it harder to approach people for fear of rejection.

There were rumors that my snoring was actually going into competition with DFH at full blast, but I am sure this is not true, anyhow we always have our warning sign hanging from our tent just in case any unsuspecting souls should camp too close.

Seriously though if you do get migraine or just need more sleep, then make sure you take a good supply of ear plugs,very high noise is always going to be a feature of LM, best try to account for it in planning.  

As with last year we were at BSJ, which again i rate as a campsite, good neighbours, good atmos, clean bogs and showers (cold water only though), but yes yes and yes, BSJ is a hell of a treck to the circuit, especially in that LM heat.

I spent far more time at camp this year than any other due to the logistics of getting my arse off my seat to the village, but hey perhaps i'm just getting old.

As ever though LM was a brilliant weekend, the £50 merc made it there and back, probably my most sober year, probably my biggest hayfever year, but still up there as one of the great weekends.

And on the way back we spent the night in Rouen which was very civilised watching the projections with classical mucic being beamed onto the cathedral facade whilst eating my menu de jour with a caraff or 3 of vin rouge.

See items 9, 10 & 12.
It still hurts,

and I keep missing JPC

what can I say as for this, Roy said most of it on our own website>>
http://www.drinkingforholland.nl/teksten/lemans2005.htm 8)

We erm, drank a lot, saw more racing than least year, erm drank a lot, sneaked through the trees to watch midnight qualifying where were shouldn't have and erm drank a lot.

Hello All, I was a first time vistor to lemans this
year and found it to be just as mad and exciting,
as my experienced colleagues had described.
Houx annexe was madness, as was the roundabout on
friday night.
See my Lemans trip in pictures and videoclips at
http://www.miniworks.co.uk/lemans/lemans6.html (http://www.miniworks.co.uk/lemans/lemans6.html)

As a mildly amusing postscript to this years race, I think this story is proof (if proof is actually needed) that Le Mans can come back and bite you on the arse just when you thought it was all over.

Chris Z, a close bosom friend of the Gimp and he who delights in pointing out that "This Man Likes Cock ->", works as a manager of the Information Desk at Gatwick Airport (no wonder it's always utter chaos when you go in there). Anyway, he was leaving the staff car park last week and HM Customs and Exercise were doing one of their ad hoc random searches on the homeward bound. Apparently, it has been know for duty free goods etc to go walkies and end up in the boot of people's cars, although you will find that hard to believe.

Mr Customs Officer looks in Chris's car and sees empty   packets of French-scripted Camel Lights strewn all over the floor and so he decides to take a closer look. He askes Chris to open the boot. In there, there is a cool-bag which Chris had collected from my house the day before and which was packed with all manner of gear that me and the Gimp had found strewn in the back of the Commer.

Mr Customs Officer opens up the bag and starts rummaging around, his hand alighting on a pair of underpants which he duly pulls out to inspect for hidden crack etc. He recoils in horror as he realises the crotch of the under-crackers are heavily smeared in a thick brown unctious matter, with peanut shaped lumps stuck in it. Fortunately he was wearing rubber gloves, but apparently he still made terrible gakking and gurkking noises, whereupon he curtailed the search due to being sick in the pit of his stomach.

Chris by this time had realised that the brown substance was nothing worse than Cadbury's Whole Nut Choccy purchased at Le Mans Carrefour, a bar of which had melted on the Commer kitchen worktop during the heatwave on the sunday; I had cleaned up the mess with the nearest item to hand, namely Chris's kexx. His protestations of innocence fell on deaf HM Customs ears and he is now marked down at work as having unnatural fetishes. But I knew that years ago....

LOL.  That is one of the funniest things I've read in ages.   ;D ;D ;D

Priceless ;D ;D ;D ;D

Excellent - shame the tee shirt was'nt in there as well!! (unless your chris of course)

such a way with words,  cracked me up.   ;D ;D ;D

Operation thirst:

Left home thursday morning, 6am. Onto the ferry at Portsmouth where the woman on the next table promptly threw up everywhere whilst we were still in the harbour. Nice.
Cherbourg to Le Mans in bright sunshine.
Karting Nord virtually full but found a spot between the road and the Danish. Drank away the rest of Thursday and all of Friday. Apologies to Johnny Herbert who got attacked by a water pistol by one of our adopted team mates (long accident ridden story)
Drank with the Danes, watched in surprise / horror as they danced to that song "who the **** is Alice"
Drank with anyone else interested, sunburnt my feet in flip flops.
Watched the racing
Fireworks and more booze
Home, Monday morning

Ready for next year.

 

No major problems, i might have forgotten to bring the one bit of the PDA needed to use the gps, then we took 6 wrong turns on the journey, one taking us half way to paris on the motorway before we could turn back for Le Mans, putting tents up in rain...well some of the tents, we may have forgotten the pole for the big one we we're all going to sleep in, so no one had a tent (carrefour will provide!) but one of the best parts for me happened before we even left british seas, i was recognised on the ferry by a fellow CA'er. But it was all worth it to meet such an, er...interesting group of like minded people. Next time i'll try and remember who all of you were... Nick

Moped Boy, You were rather easy to spot on the ferry. Something to do with THAT picture ;)