*Le Mans 2005 road trip*

[coombsie66]

Right, tomorrow at 4.30am i shall be starting my lemans road trip!
Crossing Dover to Calais, driving my old focus down with 2 mates, we're all going down to support our friend Adam Sharpe who is driving the LMP2 Paul Belmondo Courage (ford engined i believe).
Im really looking forward to it, and i bought myself a nice shiny digital cam the other day especially for this trip! :D
So i will take as many pics as i can, i believe there will be updates on my friends website (www.adamsharpe.com) about how he's doing, preliminary qualifying was ok, came in 8th in class, but with the 24 heurs de mans ANYTHING happens!!

Right, must dash and start packing!!! Toodle doo! :D

[No.1]

Have a safe trip mate :D

And watch out for the gendarmes :wink:

[TransAm]

Enjoy!

cant wait to see the pics!

[coombsie66]

Just got back from what i can only describe as an amazing experience, and bloody good fun! Here are a few pics, and the story of my trip to the 2005 Lemans 24 hour.

Good old Focus ready to leave, bright and early at dover:
http://img56.echo.cx/img56/10/dsc000276uo.th.jpg (http://img56.echo.cx/my.php?image=dsc000276uo.jpg)
The white cliffs for which dover seems to be so famous, wonderfull view on a sunny day, but fucking painfull as you can see them more or less the whole way to france and it highlights how slowly your going and/or rolling!
http://img56.echo.cx/img56/3260/dsc000285kb.th.jpg (http://img56.echo.cx/my.php?image=dsc000285kb.jpg)

It was a relatively quiet drive down to lemans with few other lemans goers on the way as it was early in the week, luckily that meant no Gendarme as well!!! (very good average speed :wink: )

So we arrive in lemans, and everything is fine, meet my friend who was driving this year at lemans, bought tickets and were on our way back to our accomodation following him when..
... ummm my clutch appears to have stopped working, YOU F**KING C**T OF A PIECE OF S**T FORD!! GOD DAMN YOU!!
So i pull over, swear at the car some more, kick the tyre a few times, and then set about diagnosing the problem. No obvious leaks, failed more or less instantly, will start in gear and change clutchlessly, so i then spend the next few hours driving as such around looking for a garage who could help.
After attempting to discuss the ins and outs of my hydraulic clutch actuation system etc in pigeon Franglais i give up and give the car to the garage who are adement that the clutch is shagged, and its a full, box out jobbie (mucho denero :? ) i thought it was the actuation system.
I get picked up by my friend, and then we have 5 people and 5 people's luggage for a weeks stay and some shopping in an E36 M3 coupe, it was 'interesting' lets say.
Anyway the garage was very helpfull and fair, they replaced the clutch in 3 days, and i went to pick it up. The mechanic whom i had argued with over wether it was a clutch faliure or master cylinder failure was all too happy to show me the state of my old clutch! Loads of friction material left, pressure plate blued to fuck! and one of the springs which 'smooths' the bite of the clutch was completely anhialated!!
I was wrong :oops: , funilly enough forgot how to appologise in french at that moment in time :wink: :P

So £460 lighter but with a working focus, we continued with the lemans experience:

Scruteneering on tuesday in the main square of lemans:
The cathedral in lemans, stunning!
http://img56.echo.cx/img56/4541/dsc000365fn.th.jpg (http://img56.echo.cx/my.php?image=dsc000365fn.jpg)

The crowds gather before the majority of the cars are even there!
http://img56.echo.cx/img56/3461/dsc000376xb.th.jpg (http://img56.echo.cx/my.php?image=dsc000376xb.jpg)

My friends car arrives! :D
http://img56.echo.cx/img56/9725/dsc000395wg.th.jpg (http://img56.echo.cx/my.php?image=dsc000395wg.jpg)

Lined up with other contenders and team car, (sorry for the biased coverage of the event but well, i am :wink: )
http://img56.echo.cx/img56/4442/cimg01990zd.th.jpg (http://img56.echo.cx/my.php?image=cimg01990zd.jpg)

New Audi RS4 pace car (SOUNDED FANTASTIC!!!!!!!! :shock: ) and looked pretty nice too, my favourite audi RS yet:
http://img56.echo.cx/img56/4520/cimg02022ef.th.jpg (http://img56.echo.cx/my.php?image=cimg02022ef.jpg)

The Belmondo team, they were a fantastic team, very professional, unfortunately my french was not up to really talking much to the team engineers and they were always busy!
http://img56.echo.cx/img56/4618/cimg02941kn.th.jpg (http://img56.echo.cx/my.php?image=cimg02941kn.jpg)

The two Aston DBR9's, truely amazing cars, no pictures do them justice, especially mine! :oops:
http://img56.echo.cx/img56/7391/cimg03330ib.th.jpg (http://img56.echo.cx/my.php?image=cimg03330ib.jpg)

At the aston hospitality at the circuit, the new DBRS9 and a DBR9 looking even better in blue!
http://img56.echo.cx/img56/1860/dsc002237ts.th.jpg (http://img56.echo.cx/my.php?image=dsc002237ts.jpg)


I got very few action shots of the qualifying as 1. they move fucking fast down the pit straight! 2. it gets dark in the second session and the only thing i could actually get to come up on screen was long trails of brake lights. So i have a couple but they arnt too special.

So qualifying took place, the team did well.
Drivers parade on friday, spent at least an hour looking for a parking space, resulted in going wrong way up a one way street and pulling a U turn to get one!!
Picci's from the square, event was sponsored by bell & Young's supercars, so lots of nice metal, and even better curves in the shape of the hawian tropic girls :wink: :

http://img137.echo.cx/img137/8464/dsc002550db.th.jpg (http://img137.echo.cx/my.php?image=dsc002550db.jpg) http://img137.echo.cx/img137/2530/dsc002617fw.th.jpg (http://img137.echo.cx/my.php?image=dsc002617fw.jpg) http://img137.echo.cx/img137/6526/dsc002631ib.th.jpg (http://img137.echo.cx/my.php?image=dsc002631ib.jpg) http://img137.echo.cx/img137/4580/dsc002659lm.th.jpg (http://img137.echo.cx/my.php?image=dsc002659lm.jpg)

http://img137.echo.cx/img137/6424/dsc002679nd.th.jpg (http://img137.echo.cx/my.php?image=dsc002679nd.jpg) http://img137.echo.cx/img137/3664/dsc002699ra.th.jpg (http://img137.echo.cx/my.php?image=dsc002699ra.jpg) http://img137.echo.cx/img137/782/dsc002735pf.th.jpg (http://img137.echo.cx/my.php?image=dsc002735pf.jpg) http://img137.echo.cx/img137/8311/dsc002740bq.th.jpg (http://img137.echo.cx/my.php?image=dsc002740bq.jpg)

http://img137.echo.cx/img137/2197/dsc002776gx.th.jpg (http://img137.echo.cx/my.php?image=dsc002776gx.jpg) http://img137.echo.cx/img137/208/dsc002787oo.th.jpg (http://img137.echo.cx/my.php?image=dsc002787oo.jpg) http://img137.echo.cx/img137/4079/dsc002798xa.th.jpg (http://img137.echo.cx/my.php?image=dsc002798xa.jpg) http://img137.echo.cx/img137/5471/dsc002830zv.th.jpg (http://img137.echo.cx/my.php?image=dsc002830zv.jpg)
http://img137.echo.cx/img137/2273/dsc003039xy.th.jpg (http://img137.echo.cx/my.php?image=dsc003039xy.jpg)
http://img60.echo.cx/img60/4057/dsc002931uw.th.jpg (http://img60.echo.cx/my.php?image=dsc002931uw.jpg) http://img60.echo.cx/img60/4623/dsc002921lm.th.jpg (http://img60.echo.cx/my.php?image=dsc002921lm.jpg) http://img60.echo.cx/img60/7432/dsc002907xt.th.jpg (http://img60.echo.cx/my.php?image=dsc002907xt.jpg)
:wink: :wink: :D

Part 2 with pics, write up of the race and trip home shall appear when i have the time and energy!

[TT]

Thanks for the write up and even more pics from the parade :) amazing lineup, I hope you had time to also walk around the parkings ;)

[No.1]

Unluck with the clutch .... at least you were able to get home... Le Mans is fun for a few days, but i don't think you would have appreciated staying longer :wink:

DBR9s!!! How many are/were there? Looks great in BRG, not sure about the blue.

Nice pics of the parade cars too... the Macca (sorry Jabba), the Zonda F (Not at all sorry for that one :twisted: )

Thanks for sharing mate... you must have had a ball 8)

[coombsie66]

^^ I did a lot of walking around the car parks, but i only took a few pics, i was busy getting bloody sunburnt! The weather was crazy, and i had to keep my camera emtpy enough for pics of the end of the race.
Some very nice cars in the car parks, none looking in a particulary good state by the race though, covered in dust, flies, shit and greasy finger marks!

[coombsie66]

^^ 2nd in class, (LMP2) 22nd overall :D , was in the lead of the class for most of the race, car problems for all LMP2 contenders resulted in the podium order coming more or less down to the line!
Was a very interesting race this year.

[gucom]

OMG WHY WASNT I THERE??? ok maybe cos i arrived only saturday morning...but still SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT i missed a McLaren F1!!!

ok my pics are now moved:
http://www.motorworld.net/forum/showthread.php?p=423276#423276

[ViperASR]

Wow man thanks. Your photography is fine for me. Wish that i could go to Le Mans, the biggest thing i get to go to over here is the 12 Hours of Sebring. Your lucky.....

[TT]

gucom, you could have posted your pics in the "what you saw" section ;)

As for the two Ferraris in your pics, the first one (blue) is "regular" 275 GTB while the red one in the shadows is a 275 GTB Shortnose IMO.

BTW, to put the pics in the middle of the text is a bit confusing ;) you could hit the return key every now and then :P