As regular readers will know ‘The Classic’ is one of our favourites. It has everything ‘automotive’ you could possibly shake a stick at plus a bit of racing. We did speculate that if we had a mythical copy of some splendidly anal publication such as ‘I Spy Automobiles’.. the up to 1966 version..We wondered just how many cars we would be able to tick off during the whole weekend.. road cars, race cars, display cars and so on.
Just sitting slurping beer at L’Arlequin in Arnage means you will see one of most things, that includes automotive items and various sub-species of human beings. You should have heard the welcome a nice slinky lady in a Caterham received from the predominantly male spectators! The good news is that is very hot and sunny .. so there is lots of human bodywork on show... the bad news is that it is actually rather too hot and sticky to function effectively or move around too much or too fast. Depending on which weather forecast you read the temperature has been as high as 33°C with humidity hovering 85% or higher. We are not complaining but sweat running down your back is not deemed all that sexy!
Ambling through the six 'plateaux' of garages is an amazing experience..you can easily drift into sensory overload. For example at some events you might spot one of an exotic bit of machinery, here you will find half a dozen. They sit in their tents largely unprotected with their owners asleep in deck-chairs. For example at Goodwood you might see the occasionally Bugatti .. at the ‘Classic’ there were nine in Grid One. Catching sight of a Gullwing Mercedes 300 is a fairly rare occurrence at a race track, even more so on the way to Tesco ..There may have been only two racing but the Paddocks and parking were awash with the bloody things. We did speculate how many there still were outside museums and being used by private individuals. By the way the new ‘F1 Safety Car’ gull wing Mercedes 6.3 litre SLS AMG looks better in the flesh than on TV and they (yes all four of them) sound lovely! Want one? Well Sir .. I can you a deal .. if you twist my arm I can do you one ‘list’ for just a list price of £157,500 .. only comes in silver though squire!
The weekend started with all six ‘plateaux’ full of cars.. let's call them grids from now on.. OK? Each grid has around 68 cars so, including reserves and we are told there are 468 cars here.. and that is just the racing.
Out in the campsites, around the bars and circuit the place is alive with virtually everything that left a car production line up to and beyond 1966.. Except so far an Austin Allegro (unless of course, you know better ).
We are absolutely certain that there are many more people here than there were two years ago, it is heaving.. but we can’t get any numbers from anywhere..(How French is that!) there are more of the campsites open than last time. It seems to appeal to a rather different type of clientele than the 24hrs. For a start there are very few Danes or Dutch as far as we can tell, instead we have rather more ‘mature’, sober citizens who deign to camp for convenience rather than economics. Looking around the sites there are hi-tech tents and equipment that would be nice and cosy half way up The North Face of The Eiger rather than a French heatwave! These guys build ‘beer walls’ but with empty wine and champagne bottles! Just a whiff of Henley old boy ! The beer is no cheaper than the main event and in this heat one needs to drink gallons of the stuff.. even your faithful alcohol fuelled scribe has been seen drinking water .. really .. water.. who would have thought it.
But we came to watch cars racing and you really are spoiled for choice. However should you wish to read in depth articles about who won what you will be very disappointed, instead you will have to run the gauntlet of RIS timing.(
www.ris-timing.be). We have not really given up on you but it is astoundingly difficult to work out what on earth is going on. The routine seems to be.. the race ends ...then take your time publishing results, around an hour or so .. then cancel that lot while you apply some apparently random penalties... then scrap that lot because half the grid has complained.. and so on .. at some point a definitive version will emerge.... maybe! (But possibly not in our lifetime.)
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We would love to crack the Enigma Code that surrounds the results but we can’t find out how two thirds of each grid manages to attract penalties that range from 0.30 secs to a rather meaty 5 laps and three minutes. What is really frustrating us is not knowing what heinous crime these guys have committed to be awarded these draconian penalties. We do know there are penalties for screwing up your pit stop, too early, too late .. too slow .. too fast ..or not at all.. who knows! We also gather than some of drivers couldn’t really care what penalties they get, it has cost them a sh*t load of money to be here so they don’t relish spending half their track time in pit-stops! We see their point!
If racing isn’t your thing (but we suspect it might be) then you could bring the Memsahib along for some retail therapy. There are 170 exhibitors here plus an abundance of ever so smart shops selling smart leather things that don’t seem to match the tropical dust ridden climate this year. There were rumoured to be nearly 100 Car Clubs. For us ‘chaps’ there were some mighty impressive car displays from Jaguar, Mercedes, Nissan, BMW and Citroen. but long queues for beer and food. Isn’t it a pity the catering side of things seems to formal, structured, controlled and expensive nowadays?
If you want a little something for yourself when not go to the cash machine and then head off to Artcurial Motorcars Dept who are holding their first auction.. you could have 'stolen' a Ferrari 275 GTB/4 for the measly sum of €850,000.. that could come out of next week’s house keeping surely?
Back to the results and those incomprehensible penalties .. You may recall that many of the cars on the various plateaux have been receiving retrospective penalties for all sorts of different reasons. We are not suggesting for a moment that the following is correct but a ‘French Type Lady Person’ suggested this may be the way it works.. You are supposed to take your pit stop during a specific ‘window’ if you don’t ...........read on!
Taking less than 90 seconds for your pit stop earns you a 30 sec penalty
Not stopping during the pit stop window is a 2 minute penalty
Speeding in the pit lane, you ‘win’ a 1 minute penalty
This next one is a bit special ... if you can’t be bothered to stop at all for your ‘mandatory’ pit stop then you get a penalty of the number of laps the car has completed since it should have stopped... OK?
Jumping the start .. a simple and quite cheap..30 secs per place gained on the grid.
There may well be other penalties about which we know nothing!
We have just had a moment of blinding intellectual brilliance ... we have been wondering why they don’t all use transponders to make life easier ... the reason..? Maybe because it is not easy to get your hands on 468 transponders all at once on the same weekend! It is now 16:15hrs and the racing is over .. the garages are empty.. the Motor Clubs are tidying up and setting off to beat the rush hour. We are heading a beer or several in Arnage having had a splendid if rather hot and sticky weekend..
Watch out for LMS at S’stone we may well fire off another blog or two .. at least we will have a vague idea of what is going on..
Farewell from ‘Le Grand Fromage’ ...’Mercator’ our tour manager and the nearest thing we have to a responsible adult and of course your drunken scribbler ..
