Mad Friday

[Robbo SPS]

The list of damages read :

MG ZR160 - Rear side window, trimmings and pulley. Far side rear window pulley and cover plate. Both doors re-alligned and dent in roof removed, 4 large scratches taken from front door.

VX Zafira - New rear passenger door, and new paint job on front passenger door.

Trailer - New mud guard and metal holder after driver got a bit tired on way home. Plus a bit of paint for touch ups.




Not bad - Next year - Hire CARS !!

Thanks for the commets and mails / pms. I am a LM muppet as we all are, i just got a little upset over the wine thing. Everything else still goes, buurn outs, wtaer soakers and the like.

Maybe get trumpton to turn out next time ??

[turkish.sps]

The MG window break in allits glory. You may have to register to view!!


http://www.lotusxifc.co.uk/videos.asp#

[smuudge]

Its sad to hear about  the water rifle business. I took a bucket of water doing 20+mph on my go-ped outside Parking Bleu on the Friday, luckily managed to keep my balance but could of been nasty...saw several pissed of people in drenched Caterhams/soft tops in the traffic jams....not funny, and mindless pricks if you ask me....

Also got some abuse of a cliched british lout in BSJ.....just kept the gas on....sadly the only downside of our week where these prats which really give a bad name to what is otherwise a fantastic event. As the saying goes 'Theres allways 1!'.

[Lazy B'stard]

Loutish behaviour was just not restricted to around the circuit and campsites on Friday either. We passed through Arnage on Friday afternoon (granted -always lively) But the gang of pissed Britts at the roundabout should be ashamed, we got behind a pair of Gendarmes on bikes and the barrage of abuse was shocking, several pissed idiots spilled out into the road mouthing off and making very rude gestures towards these two guys, one bloke spat at the rider nearest to us, hitting him on the shoulder and recieved a round of applause from his stupid friends. I'm sorry to say that amongst this crowd of w***ers was at least one Club Arnage shirt!!
 Why some people think its OK to give the French police a hard time I don't know, do these same arseholes behave like that back home?? If I'm not mistaken, we have a few members on here who uphold the law for a living, is it OK to abuse and spit at these fellow members???
 Yes we all like a laugh, but  I think things went a little too far this year. And if you are reading this and were amongst that group on Friday afternoon, may I sugest you F*** off and find another sport, Football starts in a few weeks, go on-sod off!

[ecurie]

I have to agree that some people attitude towards the gendarmes is shamefull. The gendarmes might be the ones nicking us for speeding on our way to and from Le Mans, but you have to admit that they have a pretty laid back attitude towards the Mad Friday burnouts etc...
Over here, in Belgium, they would block off the roads, arrest all people just thinking of pushing the accelarator pedal and would have parliament voting on raising traffic fines once more.
Not wanting to go so far as saying "let's hear it for the gendarmes", let's all appreciate that they are not so bad after all.
So, those spitting etc... at the gendarmes, just F*** off !

[Perdu]

It seems to be getting very sad these days. If we had Le Mans over here would our police be as tolerant as the Fench guys are considering we basically take over the large chunk of France we do? I have me doots.

To spit on the police shows a very nasty type of drunk, just like the drunken yobs that upset us in our camp.

Sadly it is too late to change the w**nkers but by god I hope the flics can get the political assistance to storm in to any hooligan elements and take them out of our hair too. Six months in clink seems reasonable.....

I need Le Mans every year as a pressure relief valve but I do not need to share it with scum.

 

Only an opinion, but I dont like being compared to trash like that  and of course we all are!

[JB.]

  Its a sad state of affairs, this topic was the main point of disscusion in our group.
It sickens me to think that a certain type of Brit has now found Le Mans, i enjoy Le Mans for escaping this sort and meeting more like minded people.

We saw a nasty ford fiesta with tea tray spoiler and neons crusing round the HA roundabout, need I say more. Oh and one guy told me that my car wasn't real because "it aint got one those big spoilers on the back"   while standing in the middle of the road shouting 'w~#kers' at every passing car.

I fear it will get worse but hope it will be a passing fad.

[Paddy_NL]

Guess there will always be people misbehaving, no matter what nationality. Some people just always have to take it that one step further, and alcohol pushes them further (is not the main cause). Shame really, sometimes it goes all wrong and they have to pay for their mistake for years to come. Silly & stupid.



(oh dear, no I hope you guys think we were acceptable on MB )

[mwbennett]

We stopped doing the following things about 3 years ago:

1. Camping - after laying in our tents petrified wondering if the next car/bike doing burnouts in the campsite (MB) was going to come through the side of the tent.

2. Driving the circuit after Wednesday - after getting soaked outside the resturants on Mulsanne (just for having the roof down), and again on the road outside MB after not doing a "burnout".

Yes we have a nice car (Boxster S). No I can't afford a new clutch/gearbox/whatever for the entertainment of others. Neither can I afford the legal problem if something went "wrong"...

And as for the lovely gentlemen who screamed drunkenly in my face as I sat in my car in traffic at Place-de-Jacobin last year "Go on give it some - you can f***ing afford it yah bast**d".

1. No I can't - I'm still paying for the car 4 years after buying it - and I have several years to go...
2. I know who my parents are - do you?

[geoffd]

Well said,

Not everyone who owns a nice car got it cos they are rich or have it as a company car!  I worked hard (and borrowed) to get my Aston, and still work hard to keep it just as you have.  I'm sure that there are a lot of enthusiasts at LM who are in the same boat and get treated the same way, but one by one we learn and stop going to the trouble spots.....

Having said that the few (off peak) times we drove through Arnage we nothing but great comments and cheery waves!  So it wasn't all bad

[20VT]

I also witnessed the Friday night HA roundabout exploits. I have to agree that the "yob" mentality seems to be growing. I am probably going to sound like a pompous upper-class twit here, but I thought that a fair chunk of the crowd were of the type who have never worked a day in their lives and wait for the weekly state handout   and I am talking about whole families here   Is it really required viewing for toddlers and babes in prams?

Add to that the appearance of "matched pairs" of cars like the civics and the Nissan's, and we are getting to the stage of holding UK style "street cruises" with all the grief and mayhem that they entail. If these Pratt's were as good at driving as they thought they were, they would be doing it on the track 100 meters away instead! In my youth I was a rally driver (with a fair bit of auto-testing thrown in) and I believe that I am quite capable of throwing a car around in circles, but there is absolutely no chance at all that you would catch me, or I hope any other competition driver, doing these stupid stunts in such close proximity to bystanders.

I thought that the way the crowd reacted when the French truck driver got out of his cab was appalling. The guy had just been caught square in the face by a huge super-soaker as he was driving a large artic round a packed roundabout, he had every right to be upset but I thought the crowd were going to lynch him   He was on his phone pretty fast, and I am really surprised that either the Gendarmes did not turn up, or a large bunch of beefy truckers  

The van driver was insane, and how the hell it failed to roll I don't know. And as for the idiot in the Audi......... he must have nearly gone into either the crowd or another vehicle more than a dozen times.

However, hats off to the coach driver, who with a fully loaded double-decker coach got into the spirit of things and did a complete circle of the roundabout (with a fair bit of lean on) and got the biggest cheer of the night.

Personally I think that the Gendarmes are going to have to make an appearance in force next year, and I think that all water pistols are going to need to be banned. They should simply confiscate them on the spot.

It may be an idea for the ACO to consider making some sort of official event for people to enter and show off their abilities, or in the case of the civics some head to head drag style racing. I guess there is two sides to this possibility, one the kudos of winning an official Le Mans event may help attract the idiots, or two the fact that it is official will mean they are not interested and they will find somewhere else to try and kill somebody. If the ACO or local Gendarmes wish to stop this, then it would be quite simple with the addition of UK style speed bumps, even the temporary rubber rumble strips should bugger up circuits of the roundabout.

OK, rant over. Now I would like to congratulate the relevant authorities on the cleanup job they did on the roundabout   despite the amount of crap left the night before, I thought it was pretty clear when I next passed through.

Sir regrettably you do sound like a pompous twit. You state that many in the crowd were a bunch of low life’s (you were itching to say Chavs weren’t you?). You then go on to admit that you were part of the crowd that stayed there to witness much of what went on......therefore perpetuating the antics. Using your own judgmental based logic perhaps you should be tarred with the same brush.

I must confess that I did take a trip to the roundabout during the early evening and after only a few minutes could see that many of the people taking the tomfoolery too far were not the type that you would like to lay the blame with. We could see it was going to get out of hand so left.

It would be nice to think that such behaviour could be restricted to a certain element of society but I think you will find many of those participating were probably perfectly respectable people, behaving like kids.

[smokie]

Now now, mutual respect here please... Vigorous debate is OK but name calling isn't...

[Mr. Invincible Mou]

Sir regrettably you do sound like a pompous twit. You state that many in the crowd were a bunch of low life’s (you were itching to say Chavs weren’t you?). You then go on to admit that you were part of the crowd that stayed there to witness much of what went on......therefore perpetuating the antics. Using your own judgmental based logic perhaps you should be tarred with the same brush.

Hello 20VT, whilst you are quite welcome to call me a pompous twit (I did invite such in my post Smokie, thanks for the defence though   ), I should point out that I did not mention that I was actually at the roundabout, simply that I witnessed it. I was in fact the other side of the fence in Houx Annexe having a drink with somebody, it just so happens that where they were camping meant there was a good view of what was happening.

  Yep I was itching to say Chavs, but I managed to restrain myself  

It would be nice to think that such behaviour could be restricted to a certain element of society but I think you will find many of those participating were probably perfectly respectable people, behaving like kids.

You are very possibly correct in this statement, but it does not mean that it is right. Having said that, I fail to see how anybody who becomes violently aggressive simply because they have had a drink can be classed as "perfectly respectable people".

[RS2 Babe]

 

I thought it was no complaint day.

All things taken into consideration - did we all have fun?

I did.

And I am guilty of partaking in some mad driving in the Porshe - but when you mostly live in Jersey and can only go max 40 MPH??? I don't balme Jan for going a bit mad. Plus he had a new girlfriend to impress. Even Mr RS2 looked a bit nervous!!!

And we did get soaked and had to listen to lots of abuse.

Never Mind

Lisa
xxx

[Mr Toad]

Reading all this can (rightly) be quite depressing, however I would like to add that although I was a bit concerned about it, "The Wild Choppers" did not get hosed down by anyone at all (although we missed out the HA roundabout on our Friday display). Proof that everyone has a limit as to what constitutes fair game to them? We just need to help them raise it...