Le Mans Classic 2010 - Jox Jottings preview

The Le Mans Classic

If the ‘Main Event’, The 24 hrs du Le Mans, is all about huge crowds, traffic jams, packed campsites, clogged up loos and cold showers, plus the odd drop of what now seems to have become rather expensive beer being consumed, then the ‘The Classic’ is a rather different kettle of fish (bouilloire de poissons!) It still gets pretty busy, but two years ago the local restaurants didn’t feel the need to switch to their quick food / set menus .. The bars were not heaving and there was a much more relaxed atmosphere all round. Plus one got to see one of almost every car built since 1923 to the present day. The downside is that not all the camping is open and there seemed to be more restrictions surrounding viewing points and as a result the event appears more compact.

This will be our third Classic and it will be just as hard to follow as ever .. maybe looking for winners is a bit of a lost cause . Anyway are you sitting comfortably? Then I will begin....

There are six ‘plateaux’ or grids and each grid is made up of 65 cars plus 12 reserves. This means that there will be around 470 cars competing. The reserves come into play if any car falls apart at any point. They like full grids here! In 2008 drivers came from 30 nationalities. This means that there are several paddocks scattered around all simply crammed full of delicious machinery.

The grids are based upon the age of the cars .. So Grid One covers 1923-1939... Grid Two 1949-1956.. Grid Three 1957-1961... Grid Four 1962-1965.. Grid Five 1966-1971 and finally Grid Six covers 1972-79. Looking at the entry list it seems some cars will have as many as three drivers, so there could be over a thousand drivers at the event. To be eligible the actual car must have built between 1923-79 and raced at Le Mans 24hrs or be a model of that same type. This will make the oldest car at the event a 1925 Bugatti 35 and the newest cars are like the 1979 Ferrari 512 BBLM, Porsche 935 and The Rondeau 379 C.

Do you begin to see the problem reporting on this?! To add to the fun there are various penalties added to lap times to jumble up the time sheets.. but we never found out what dreadful crime had been incurred to get these penalties.

To simplify matters they will be running the grids in three ‘rounds.. back to back starting from 15:45hrs on Saturday and finishing at 16:00 hrs on Sunday. Just in case you thought you were getting a grip of all this the order the Grids will run in is 3,4,5,6,1,2... (Looks like a curious firing order on a six cylinder engine!) With the exception of Grid 6 all the races are 80 mins long .. that means that throughout the 24hr period each of the cars will be on track for around four hours.. if you have two drivers then just two hours per driver! In 2008 a Grid One car did 7 laps and the Grid Six cars did 10 laps .. So the quick guys will get a total of maybe 30 odd laps under their belts and the more dignified will get 21..Plus the bonus of being out in the dark for at least one of those sessions.

As a driver you may find you have a bit of time on your hands, so bring your knitting ... for example if you were in Grid Three your first race is at 15:45hrs on Saturday.. then do nothing much until the second at 00:00hrs on Sunday morning and then you are out again finally at 08:40hrs on Sunday and then go home at 10:00hrs. So a total of four hours racing .. plus twenty hours taking a few rays or having a snooze or maybe even a glass of lunch!

Just in case you need to know the 2008 winners were as follows:-
Class 1 was won by a Talbot 105 driven by Gareth Burnett and Julian Bronson.
Class 2 was won by a Jaguar C-Type driven by Vary Paerson and Nigel Webb.
Class 3 featured the same drivers winning in a D-Type, although this was based on laps total. A Saab 93 driven by Fredrik Tornérhielm, Bo Lindman and Göran Dahlén won the class based on adjusted performance and came second in total. ( see what we mean about things getting confusing!)
Class 4 was won by a Ford GT40 driven by Christian Glasel.
Class 5 was by Olivier Cazalier's in his Ferrari 512S
Class 6 was won by a Porsche 936 driven by Jean-Marc Luco and Jürgen Barth.

But it isn’t all about the racing ... Oh No!! Lots of other stuff is going on all the time.
There are anniversaries galore .. Alfa Romeo celebrate their 100 years... Lagonda are celebrating 75 years since their first Le Mans win... Porsche is celebrating 40 years since their first victory ... The Aston Martin Owners Club is 75 years old. Three BMW ‘Art Cars’ will be on display including Andy Warhol’s BMWM1.

There are some movie stars here as well .. Laurel and Hardy’s Model T Ford.. the ‘Back to The Future’ Delorean.. Bond’s Aston Martin DB5 ... the Ford Mustang out of ‘Un Homme et une Femme’ (remember the theme tune?) ... and so on. The Owners clubs are being encouraged to put on displays that recreate a movie scene!

Talking of the Owners Clubs, in 2008 over 6,500 cars were on display inside the circuit.

So all things being considered it is a mighty big event .. with plenty of racing .. and maybe almost as interesting is the huge displays of cars from virtually every owners club in Europe.. plus train rides, classic bus rides and there is always the odd beer to sip .. I wonder what the Classic Licensing laws are this year!?