Classic Le Mans "The Homecoming"

[Ferrari Spider]

Another fantastic trip, stories to tell over the next few days by Club Arnagers.  Here is a photo of the artist formerly known as zarse enjoying "one" final libation in Deauville, about 06:00 Monday morning having an early breakfast with the casino dancers.!

[Robbo SPS]

He looks like he had a hard weekend  

[Ferrari Spider]

  hard came later on when it was time to get on the ferry!

[Andy Zarse]

Ah! Mr Catchpole! how nice of you to remind us of  the breakfast refreshment and dancing girls.

Had a truly memorable weekend. Camped up with a great bunch of people, JPC, Ferrari Spider, Gibb, Steve Brown, Andy, Rick, Norbert and his mob, Barry and family. The racing was wonderful, the cars were unspeakably fabulous, the weather was perfect and the beer was cold. But the highlight for me, the absolute apex, was blagging our way through the pit garages and spending half an hour on the pit wall. Just awsome seeing a Lola T70, Chevron B16 and a GT40  passing three abreast, flat out and but a few feet away with no catch fencing to obscure the view. I'd say we were priveliged to be at the heart of Le Mans. Except we weren't supposed to be there at all!

On the social side, we all had a good time, drinking at the track was not too excessive, although a good few were sunk over the weekend. Our big night  out was Sunday in Deauville. After a wonderfully quick drive through the lovely summer countryside, me, Steve Z, JPC and Ferrari S went out on the lash. This involved a nice meal, wine, a trip to Deauville Casino to lose some money, a trip to the ultra exclusive Club Y nightspot (where we met the dancing girls from the Casino) and a cider brekky in a local cafe. Which was all fine and dandy until I was woken at 11.00 am by the cleaner hoovering our bedroom. We had a ferry to catch some 100kms away in Dieppe and clearly we were not going to make it. So I did what all self respecting folk would do: go back to bed for another hour. Had a pleasant breaky with JPC and FS said our goodbyes, went shopping and got the 18.00 Seacat to Newhaven.

Crowds at Classic were up 64% on 2002, it's reckonned about 50,000 people attended which is nearly as many spectators as at the French GP! Success of the event seems assured, so, Roll on 2006!

[Ferrari Spider]

Here are a few more shots.

[Ferrari Spider]

Rick doing what rick does at race meetings

[Ferrari Spider]

the artist always known as Steve, his chum the artist formerly known as Andy Zarse and JP mines a large one, enjoying the racing from the pitwall.

[hgb]

Excellent... with that spectator figures they may even organise it as a yearly event, fingers crossed.

[Perdu]

Congratulations on top notch piece of blagging, well done. Mrs Bill said on Thursday "Whyn't ya go, you know you ought to?" she was right wasn't she? Damnit I wish I had sold the car or summat. Glad you had a great time.... Roll on 2006 exactly! But I will be there next June and no missing out the shampoo bar then either.


Bill

[SteveZarse]

Awesome weekend! Must quickly send out some thanks:

to Gibberish for meeting us at the entrance to MB at 4am on Saturday with our tickets and then leading us directly to our tent (allbeit sideways),
to the kind CAers who erected our tent for us, to save us doing it at 4am,
to Rick for the use of the tent pegs,
to Peter for my first ride in a Ferrari (and a Great Night Out in
Deauville/Trouville),
to Mark(JPC) for the JD (and a Great Night Out in Deauville/Trouville),
and to Norbert & co, Barry Jo & family, Steve Brown and Andy for all the campsite/trackside amusement.

It was incredible to be on that pit wall with all those beautiful machines blatting past merely inches away . Met Johnny Herbert (although I suppose that was inevitable with JPChenet around!).  Played in the All New Zarse vs JPC Pool Challenge for the Over Refreshed (although I can’t for the life of me remember who won).

All in all, I can, and will forthwith, vigorously recommend the Classic Le Mans to all and sundry. Vive Le Mans!
 

[Andy Zarse]

We were truly suckling at the nipple of the bosom of Sweet Mother Le Mans. What a fabulous racing car! You should have heard it to...

[Ferrari Spider]

Mr Artist, are u referring to the lady walking passed the tail of the 512?

[Andy Zarse]

No mate, it was the cars that were tootin' my horn at that particular moment in time.

We know what tooted your horn,

THIS:

[Steve Pyro]

I've now recovered from the drive back and must say what a damn good time we all had.
In between the beveraging and yahooing, we actually saw a bit of the racing.

The highlight for me was the paddock access pass ACO members were given.  This allowed us to get right up under the hood of all the spanner action and meet some of the stars of the motoring world.
Myself and Mr Spider were wandering around the paddocks at 2 am on Saturday morning and noticed Phil Hill (who is a fair age now) still with his racing gear on, taking a hands on interest in the fettling and tuning of his ride for the weekend.

Myself and Andy 2 cobras also had many moist moments looking at all the AC Ace's, 289's and Daytona coupes  .

I'm sorting my photos and will upload them for all to see in due course.

[Steve Pyro]

Here's some of the merry men :

FS, Gib, Rick C, JPC and Andy 2 cobras