Le Mans Classic 2022

a short video about the cityrama bus and its restoration plans.

Absolutely amazing variety of kit there!

We took a  trip down to the pit lane / pit wall to check out the driver changes / access to our allocated pit prior to our first race 



Access to this area is restricted to the teams, drivers & marshals only 



So the opportunity for some exclusive pics but you need to keep your wits about you - although there is a pit lane speed limit of 37.5 MPH - you need to cross the lane to access the pit wall and you don't want be getting in the way of another teams pit stop / change of driver 



Richard (standing) & Kevin in some last minute tactics conversation before the car heads off to the holding area prior to the race 



Closely followed by a fellow Jupiter race team who were our neighbours in the pit area for our grid 



A closer look at some of the other cars in our grid 








The cars are escorted down to the holding area by period motorcycle - the rider is in full period police uniform 











Kevin in co-driver pose 



Down in the pits the Plateau / Gird 1 cars (1923 -1939) are coming in for their driver changes (our race follows this one) 

 

Whilst others retire due to mechanical issues 









Wall mounted screens in the pit garages detail the first section of the field has it happens 





Last shot of this particular race from the pit lane - I'm way too busy for actual race pics and just have to catch what I can when I can 



Our car returns intact with a good mid field position - our neighbours with the green Jupiter not so much -  they have clutch issues 



So that's qualifying out of the way our next race is at 01:28 on Saturday morning - its a free practice and is used by most drivers / teams to night sight the track - more later 

So - I don't have any fancy camera equipment and action shots of the cars in motion just isn't going happen but I thought I would try a few short video clips - Again I'm no ace camera man but you might just get a feel for the event if you turn the sound up a bit 
















Taken from the grandstand just above the pits straight 

There's only minor things to check on the car which we can sort later in the afternoon so we headed off on tour of some of the static displays 



Some of the cars are random and others are of organised clubs 



But there's acre upon acre of it 















The Porsche's are endless just row upon row of them in my own mind the sheer amount of them just make for a boring & bland display - but that just my own opinion 



There's a pretty large on site auction of classics 





Which includes most things of a French origin 



Along with some from foreign climbs 



Quite a number of classic factory stands 



Strongly supported by the owners clubs 

























Classic coaches run visitors back & forth to numerous camp sites & car parks 



We headed across the road to the view the Yanks 












 






Loads more to come yet 

Once we had finished with the Yanks and enroute to find some beer we worked our way through one of the other pits we had yet to tour 











The Chevrolet engined Lola T70's were something else 



Bar now located   More later 
 

Then heads off to the holding area for the next race with the rest of the entries 















Down in the pits lane the Plateau / Grid 1 cars were either exchanging drivers or retiring 





Our race had now been delayed by nearly an hour 







This Bugatti team worked frantically to resolve the sticking front brake problem that they had 



On the last lap and with the finish line in clear sight something crossed immediately in front of Kevin and he took action to avoid it - unfortunately this placed the front of the car up onto a kerb and holed our low lying sump - Its now heading for 23:00 hours on Saturday - with the car in the air and the sump removed / part straightened up - Rest of the car is quickly checked over apart from some minor flattening of one of the exhaust headers and a bent front number plate we are ok   



I check our race schedule - next race is 04:41 on Sunday morning so we have a chance if we can find a welding set - However, Kevin's phrase on the race schedule 'Small Opportunity for Sleep' is well out of the window 



Tig welder sourced from a team with Jaguar C type in an adjacent pit - but first we had to go fetch it from the campsite - we track down one of the friendly 'Navettes' and get him to hang on for us whilst we dig everything out of a van & trailer - all has to be undertaken quietly because their driver & half of the team have gone off to bed 



Repair sorted - not pretty but usable and it holds oil 



Back up and running with good oil pressure and we have 40 minutes to spare before our race 



We weren't on our own with the repairs either 



Team with the Cadillac 'Le Monstre' undertook a engine swap 



And our neighbours with the other Jupiter had the engine back out & in to undertake a clutch change 



Has the daylight breaks we were heading back out on track 

Ok some of the last of my very random pics then 






















I drove the car back down to our base on the campsite which by now was becoming grid locked - its a good job we had not planned to leave on the Sunday evening because many of them didn't go anywhere for hours due to the stupid bottle neck single gate system that they run 



















New Detomaso P72's were in attendance for the parade laps - They look ok although this one is over the top with the colour combination - then again its marketed at people with more money than sense who wouldn't know what style was even if the definition was tattooed on the back of their hands 













One last post to go