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The PCGB Porsche Le Mans Tour 2003

A second year for Bob's Le Mans Tour in the thick of the action camping in the middle of the circuit.  At planning time we were told that Houx Annexe would not be available as a campsite in 2003, we thus had to choose an alternative site.  Travel Destinations and Bob plumped for Karting Nord.  As it turns out the ACO did make Houx Annexe available in the end but by then we had to stick with Karting Nord.  Personally, I preferred this year's site over last years -- Closer to the circuit at Karting. Pleasant access to village/tunnel. Could walk to Porsche Curves. Smaller, cosier feel than Houx. No TVRs!

This year we had 300 cars booked on the trip and 500 attendees at the Friday night BBQ.  The catering was a big improvement over last year and the fireworks display was awesome.  Once again we had Audio/Visual kit set up for entertainment and satellite TV viewing of the race on Eurosport.

I ran a SmartGroup Forum to enable communication prior to the race.  Take a visit there to see photos of people's transport, trip reports and more.  My SmartGroup is also running a survey on the 2003 event in order to ensure an even better 2004.

The Trip Down

This year my navigator and Le Mans virgin passenger  was my friend Rich McQuillan.  His photos in the Photo Gallery are preceded with 'RM'.  Thanks Rich.  We travelled down on the Thursday this year on the Portsmouth to Cherbourg Fastcat.  The Fastcat is absolutely the best way over.  The two hours forty minutes passage in the Club Class lounge went very quickly.  On arrival in France we decided to take the most direct route to Le Mans avoiding the Autoroutes and Alençon.   We followed Ray Toombs' route from Ayesedasi's Le Mans site. I highly recommend this route,  It is very fast with very little traffic ( I think we had to pass only 3 trucks) and we saw no sign of any speed police.

The Campsite

Bob Lovelace and the team had done a great job marking out an area for the 300 expected Porsches in Karting Nord.  When we arrived at 4pm on Thursday there was plenty of space.  We pitched and headed out to see the final qualifying.  There are few traffic problems on Thursday and firstly we headed out to the Porsche Curves car park and got our first view of this year's field.   We then drove over to Arnage village and had an excellent 20  Euro fixed price dinner.  Superb value for money, even in Le Mans week. 

By the end of our meal it was dark so it was time to drive over to Arnage corner.  We drove straight into the car park and watched until qualifying was over at midnight.  Back to the campsite to find we could not get our car back to the tents, so we parked it by the catering area, donned earplugs to drown out he Karaoke and off to sleep.
 

Friday Pit Lane and Circuit Blast (not!)

We were awakened at 6:00am on Friday by some antipodean arrivals banging in tent pegs and erecting their tent RIGHT in front of ours.  Highly anti-social.  Anyway they did apologise but I don't recall any placatory beer being offered!  We spent Friday morning over in the Pit Lane.  Bob and Andy Norris were chaperoning us in and out of PK Sports' pit garage.  An excellent opportunity to see a GT3RS up close.  Everyone on the Club trip received a five minute pass to the pit on Friday.

After the pits we grabbed one of those horrible burger baguettes and headed back to the campsite to head off for a photo shoot at Porsche Curves.  Once again, the gendarmes did not let us drive Indianapolis and they had set up radar speed traps on the Mulsanne straight and the approach to Porsche Curves.  Shame.
 

The Race

Fine weather this year although Saturday morning started out with some rain prior to the race start.  Bentley dominated the Prototypes but my interest was focussed on the GT3 RSs of PK Sport and The Racer's Group.   PCGB was supporting the only British entered Porsche from PK.  In return PK Sport donated some great raffles prizes to the group.  Unfortunately both PK Sport and The Racers Group developed problems that had pushed them well down the running order by the finish due to time in the pits for repairs.  PK Sport has great write-up of the 2003 race. on their site.  The Racer's Group also has race reports, some excellent downloadable wallpapers and a video of a lap of Le Mans.

Results, hourly race reports and plenty of photos can also be found on the official ACO Le Mans Site.

Our race coverage was a similar formula as to last year. Start and Finish watched from our grandstand seats opposite the pits.  This year the ACO gave us seat in T4.  I prefer being opposite the pits with a pair of binoculars so I bought some T8 seats from Bob Blandamer on the Club Arnage forums and sold the T4s at the BBQ evening.  The rest of the day was spent wandering around the track with rest stops and info catch-ups at the ACO garden.  A new discovery this year for me was the excellent food and minimal queues in the Sebring Restaurants self-service section.

Saturday night's dinner was in Arnage village on the pavement watching the queue of traffic coming back from Arnage corner.  Again, an excellent 20 Euro bargain.  We finished dinner at around 1am and headed out to Arnage corner.  No traffic problems and straight into the car park.  In bed by 3am.

Sunday morning included a visit to the ACO museum and some shopping in the village.  Back to the grandstand by 2:30 for the finish.  By 4:30 we were walking back along the track to the campsite at Karting Nord.  We had packed up in the morning, so after some goodbyes we left the site turned right outside and at the T-Junction hit the traffic queued up towards Arnage village on the right.  We had been there just 2 minutes when a motorcycled Gendarme drove-up and opened up the left turn out to the Mulsanne straight.  We were the first car to join the circuit at the chicane as they were opening the public roads.  45 minutes late and we were in our hotel for the night in Chateau-du-Loir.

The Trip Home

We had an excellent dinner in the hotel with Richard Ling-Williams and Vicky who were joined as usual by Bob and Matt.  Richard submits running reports on this Website.  If you are  interested in checking out his 964 celebration transport,  Goto the Reviews page.

Next morning, we blasted up to the Normandy coast.  Our destination was Cancale, the oyster capital of France.  Our mission, a seafood lunch.  Mission accomplished over two and a half hours and then on up to Cherbourg for the 7:45pm Fastcat.  A slight hiccup as we arrived and discovered that our tickets were issued for Sunday, not Monday but we made the waiting list were home by 10pm

See you in 2004.