The NurburgRing

The "Green Hell"!
Tales of horror and near-death have haunted the spirits of every fuel-fed car enthusiast.
The glory of doing the ‘Ring in a “decent” time prevails forever.
To master that track is the ultimate trophy, but who can truly say that masters it?
For it is like a wild beast, untamable.
The ‘Ring has been part of my imagination for a few years now, and when the Nissan GT-R appeared and all the “Porschegate” case started I only got more drawn to it.
Never a very computer game oriented person I actually did try and played Gran Turismo to learn the track, but to no avail. I really can’t steer a joystick in the proper manner.
So I was a ‘Ring virgin when I got there, and luckily Fred knew the track better than most guys know their girlfriends, otherwise I would have been quicker if I walked around the track instead of driving it.
The day begun in the usual way: sunny skies and a few miles ahead.
We went first to the RSR HQ to take care of all the details regarding our car for the afternoon.
Everybody was amazing.
Not just nice and thoughtful, but really amazing.
From Dale who showed us around and talked to us about the ‘Ring and RSR, to Ron, the Boss, who was the nicest guy, again, and asked for more details on what had happened to my car and how we could try and fix it in a near by shop if we wanted.
We spent a few minutes in front of a TV seeing a movie of an amazing wet lap in an Alfa Romeo just like the one we were about to take.
We signed the papers and since we had about 5 hours to burn went to the souvenir store.
There we were met by memorabilia from the “good old days” to the newly designed NurburgRing logo and merchandise.
We each bought a t-shirt and a bunch of other smaller stuff, and took picures next to the bronze statue of Sir Sterling Moss!
Lunch followed in the company of the greatest bunch of British bikers.
It turns out they go to the ‘Ring every year and they filled us with stories of the Green Hell and how it all worked over there.
We got lucky even, because just above our restaurant was this amazing place to look at the track were we spent the remaing hours until we headed of back to RSR.
Let me just tell you that the sound of 3, three, F430 Scuderias passing by in fury is something I think I’ll never forget.
A GT-R is silent next to them, and even Fred had to admit that his precious GT3RS sound much more restrained than that screaming howl of those high revving V8s….
Glorious stuff I tell you!
Back at RSR, we each picked up a helmet and had a few laughs with this really nice American that had come all the way from the States to drive the ‘Ring.
And then it happened: it started to rain.
All they grey clouds were above us, and during all day they had kept themselves from droping down water.
But now it was raining.
The fear of losing control of the car grew exponentially and we both cursed out loud for not being able to push the car further for fear of the wet track (we were going with slick tires, bear in mind).
Then the greatest thing happened: Dale turned to us and said that he was going to take his car (a 3.0 liter V6 Alfa Romeo 75) for a run down the track to check out if it was still drivable, and if the tires needed changing. He asked if we wanted to go with him.
Funny thing he had to ask. I wondered for about 10 seconds about the possibility of anybody turning him down on this….
When we were in the queue to enter the track he called HQ and told them to put regular road tires in the cars. It was now clear that the raining wasn’t going to stop.
We passed the tolls, and he accelerated a bit more, nothing out of the ordinary (it’s a bloody old Alfa V6, mind), but when he got to the first turn my lips turned to this gigantic GRIN.
Have I told you by any chance that Dale was a former Drifter in the U.K.?
Well, he was, and by the looks of things, he hasn’t lost zilch of his capabilities.
On two or three turns we even went further then 90 degrees of drift from the apex.
WOW!
I just burst out laughing!
And the ease with which he did it all!
His hands just spinning the wheel at an amazing speed while at the same time he talked us through the turns and straights and where we should push and were we should be careful.
When it ended I wanted him to do it again! :)
The cars were ready and heated up when we arrived.
We picked up our card and went to the track to have our fun!
We were going one at a time, and Fred was first to have a go.
I met up with our biker friends who had already been at the track and said it was soaked!!
I timed from the outside how long it took Fred to do his first lap: around 14 minutes.
First time ever, not bad, on a totally wet track, with a strange car in his hands.
He went for the second track and again I pushed the stop watch.
In the meantime I got busy besides the nice chat with our biker friends, watching all the amazing machinery that passed by.
On one of those occasions I saw him.
I had already chased him at lunch time, but I couldn’t be totally sure if it was indeed him.
Now I was.
Mr. Henry Catchpole from EVO magazine.
I’ve been buying that mag since… forever. And before I bought my car I read absolutely everything they had to say on the subject.
And now, the “newest addition” to EVO’s editorial staff was passing in front of me, in a V10 powered, white Audi R8.
Nice!!
Fred appeared from the gate. 12minutes and a few seconds. Not bad at all!
Away he went again, and again I clocked.
But now time passed and he didn’t show up.
All of a sudden a ambulance takes of from the pits.
I started to succumb to my imagination.
Oh please let him be Ok. Please!
I could never forgive myself!
14 minutes.
15 minutes.
16, 17, 18….
DARN!
20 minutes and no sign of him.
I’m cursing out loud now, where the F$&/ is he????
All of a sudden he shows up, big grin in his face: Did you checked my time?
“Yeah, you took, oh, almost 2 weeks!! What the hell have you been doing?”
It turns out that when he passed the tolls, he had been told to stay put.
That’s when the ambulance entered the track, but from where I was standing I couldn’t see him idling just after the tolls.
We changed seats and he risked is physical integrity to be my co-pilot.
I will never be able to thank him enough.
With him by my side telling me the turns and camber and length of the straights I could push my driving and post times that didn’t make me embarrassed to publicly state.

The best one I did?
Around 12:20 give or take a few seconds.
I’m pretty proud of that time considering that professional EVO drivers in a race prep VW Scirocco took 11:44 or something to do the track, so for a first time on track, with a old beaten Alfa Romeo (albeit also race prep with roll cage and seats)…
YEAH, I’m BLODY PROUD OF MYSELF!!

3rd day - From Spa to Giessen to Nurburg

So it’s 9 o’clock in the morning of Monday and we’re at Spa.
It’s a beautiful sunny day and we have to go to Giessen to get the car checked out by one of the BEST specialists in the world.
I had sent him an email a few weeks ago confirming date and time of our arrival and everything was going according to plan.
I had scheduled a hotel in Giessen to let him work on the car for two full days before going to Nurburg with it to tackle the ‘Ring!
We have breakfast and head out to the Spa-Francorchamps circuit.
Major disappointment!
It’s closed, it’s just a race track, and pales in comparison with the magic that we had just experienced at Le Mans.
I mean…. It’s “just” a race track.


We leave and enter the highway for Germany, straight on, 300 kms to go.
We are reminded that we are about to exit Belgium and enter Germany, which we happily do.
And then it happens: a de-restricted autobahn!
AHH!!
Bliss!
Heaven can’t be much better than this.
Well, only if you get to be here and drive a Ferrari Enzo instead!
200, 220, 230, 240, nearly 250 and I lift off.


It’s scary in a little car, with two people, filled with bags at the back, and other cars around you, and not having to worry about the police….
Weird stuff that happens in some parts of the world.
I look at the time and immediately became aware that there’s no way I’m gonna be on time.
I call Mr. Regelin and let him know that I’m late to which he replies that he’s: surprised I’m coming because he didn’t receive any email from me and he has absolutely NO time to look at my car for the next two weeks”
…… Now I’m speechless (and trust me this is hard!)
“Can you please do a remap on my car?” – the map has been showing some pretty serious holes and I believed a remap might solve this.
“Yes, a remap can be done, but there’s nothing else I can do if that doesn’t solve your problems.”
It didn’t! But he was the Kindest person you could think of.
He took the car for a spin when I arrived, opened up the engine compartment, checked all out, remapped the ECU, took it for another spin, and gave me a full report on what he believed was wrong with the car – I’m currently waiting for my technician to assemble the new parts and do the stuff Mr. Regelin said.



When we were there, it stopped making sense spending the extra night in Giessen, so we called the hotel and they were really nice with our annulment and didn’t charge anything (it was before 18:00).
We packed up and left for Nurburg instead with strict instructions not to use the car on track.
“I’m serious, the engine will BLOW if you push it! Let the Porsches go!”
I was sad, bummed, disappointed, whatever you want to call it.
I had planned glorious adventures in the ‘Ring.
Record beating laps.
Front pages on all international newspapers, an invitation to join Ferrari as an F1 test driver, everything really!
And now, none of that would happen!
(which is actually good, ‘cause this way I have an excuse for it NOT to happen!)


I was still going to go to the NordSchleiff, even if it was just for a quiet drive around the track.
And then I remembered having read about these guys, close to the track that rented cars specifically for using on the NurburgRing: RSR Nurburg!
And I cannot recommend them enough!
I mean they are THE GREATEST!




We arrived at the hotel in Nurburg beaten, bummed and sweated (you do sweat allot inside that car) and I just wanted to get my hands on something that I could take to the track and not be afraid of it blowing in my hands the next day.
“What’s wrong with your car?”
“Uh? Well, it’s the Intercooler that it’s not cooling...”
I tell him what car I drive, and all the other info he asks me and he says with a “smile in his voice” that he knows these guys that are great with this sort of car.
I mean, this is amazing! He’s genuily concerned and interested in my car.
We booked a Alfa Romeo 75, Stage 2, complete with Roll Cage, Racing slick tires and rear wheel drive.
And I took a shower, had a beautiful dinner at the Hotel Rieder’s restaurant – great service, great guy in charge of it, and peaceful quiet rooms with great view; and went for a walk alone in the nearby roads.

It was magical!(picture taken upon arrivel of the view from the room)

Very warm outside, I was wearing shorts and a t-shirt; seeing the airplanes flying above me, noticing how different the stars look from here, all the different constellations…..

And then it dawned on me: the next day I would be racing the NurburgRing!
The Green Hell!

day 2 - from Le Mans to Spa

VVVRRROOOOOAAMMMMM
This was my wake up call!
The exige 260Cup had just turned on it’s engine! And what a noise that was!
I jumped out of bed and looked out the window.
Sure enough there was a man behind the Exige a pony-tailed woman behind the Elise (girlie car?) both taking off to God-knows-where.
I sat by the desk to finish a report that I should have finished before leaving and took a quick shower.
Fred was already awake and 20 minutes later we took off as well.
Destination? Le Mans museum!
But before that, and with an empty car in our hands, we just couldn't resist doing the public part of the circuit one more time.
I mean: it's Le mans, there road is empty, and you're in a sports car.You just have to don't you?
Yes, you do. And you should too, as it's one of the most memorable moments we had, and I think I can still hear my laughing when I left the car parked by a turn.
Ok, museum.
When I got there I froze.
There, in big, capital letters was the writing: CIRCUIT DES 24 HEURES DU MANS!


Big, Blue on red, with the entrance to the race track bellow it.
I parked the car at the first available place and we almost ran inside with excitement.
I had asked the toll boy at the race track if we could visit the circuit and he said a ticket could be bought in the museum to grant us access to the race track, so my first question when we entered was to know where to buy and how much would it cost.
This was my first question, but I managed to ask a whole lot more as the beautiful young woman behind the counter was gorgeous and with that French sexyness that immediately makes you wanna quit your job, sell everything you own and move to a little cottage with her.
She guided me through the museum items: T-shirts; caps, Polos, stickers, …. A few more but admittedly I wasn’t paying much attention to that, or to anything else inside the store either.
She spoke near perfect English and had the most beautiful smile you could imagine that side of a baguette. Ahhh…. I love Le Mans….
Sadly Fred called me back to reality and told me we had to visit the museum and the race track and that we still had a lot of miles to do.
Bye bye little cottage with beautiful French lady inside….
The museum was great!
I mean, I’m not a very “museum-kind-of-guy”, and it still took me about 20 minutes to see it all.
There’s pictures of all the great drivers, pictures of the various stages of circuit evolution, and, of course, cars! Lots and lots of cars!
From old carcasses that got Fred wishing he had a few million quid hidden somewhere, to ultra-recent LMP1 winners like the Bentley and Audi and Peugeot.
I took pictures of the whole thing, especially my favourite: the Mazda Rotary-powered P1 that won Le Mans more than a decade ago.
I once had a love affair with a Mazda RX7 – 2nd gen; and I read all I could possibly get my hands on about that engine.
And when I learned that a rotary powered car managed to race on the most legendary of endurance races and win I was in awe. Amazing car, amazing technology! Congratulations Mazda.


Sooooo, to the museum store again, maybe they have some new items since a few moments ago….
CLOSED! What?? I turn my head to the museum entrance lady and she tells me that “Elle a sortie por dejeuner” Which is something like: she left for lunch!
Good! As Schwarzenegger would put it: I’ll be back!
Start the car, get to the toll, show the tickets, and drive inside!
There were Lotus everywhere!
Exiges, Elises, Elans,Europas, Speedsters, old ones from the 60s, and a brand new blue Evora!


We drove through the roads next to the track while we wondered what was happening and why were there so many Lotus cars inside.
Fred stepped out of the car and I went in pursuit of a black Exige that had strayed from the herd.
“Bonjour, pardonnez moi, mais qu’est qui ce passe?”
« C’est la réunion annuel de Club Lotus France ! »
AH ! I was enlightened already!
So it seems that Lotus France had scheduled their annual meeting for this weekend, in Le Mans, while I was there.
So nice of them really, don’t you agree?
The gentleman also pointed that there was a car like mine on the track, and that if we were doing a automotive-driven trip we should go to Mulhouse to the Cité de l’Automobile, supposedly the greatest auto museum in the world, and he looked like the kind of person who had seen a few.
Dully noted! Back to Fred and the great pictures he had taken of the Lotus going around the track.
I had this belief that maybe, just maybe we could be allowed inside the track for a spin with the rest of the lot, but Fred pointed out that nobody was racing, they were just “strolling”.
Ah! That’s no fun at all is it?
So, again we leave the track, the museum is still closed and none of us had breakfast, so what do we do?
Head for the city and search for a restaurant!
We didn’t have to search much though, as close to the track there’s one of France’s many Buffalo Grills, also redecorated with about 10 Lotuses of all kinds and shapes in the front yard.
I parked my car next to a white, track ready 2-eleven and peek inside: nothing but a fire extinguisher and some buttons. WOW! And this thing should be light as a feather….
I step inside the restaurant and immediately see a team eating with shirts that match the stickers on the 2-eleven.
I sit down, order my meal, and moments later while waiting for the much desired ribs to appear in front of me I get up and go to their table and ask them if it’s their car.
“Oui. Vous désiré de la voir? Would you like to sit inside?”
“Oh yes! Very much so, thank you! Merci beaucoup!”
So we step outside the restaurant into the parking lot and I really, CLIMB inside the car.
I mean, it has nothing inside, but I didn’t want to step on the seat or anything, so care was taken in order to avoid shame and misplacing my feet!
Once inside they showed me how to start the engine, and if I thought my engine was loud, this one was in a whole new level of loudness….
I blipped the throttle a few times and pictured myself doing the Monaco chicane at full speed in that thing. Aaahhhh to be a boy and dream again….
I got out, or flew out, whichever you preferd, and returned the favour: the pilot sat inside my car and turned the engine on.
“It’s a turbo, no?”
“Oui, yes it is! Addictive torque.”
We had a few laughs and talked a bit more but they had to go back to the track and I had lunch on the table waiting for me.
Fred had stayed inside and I didn’t ask no-one to take my picture. Shame on me.
Lunch was great (this is France, remember) but time was already running out and we had to leave.
First, a quick return to the museum store and had the beautiful woman join me in choosing something to buy.
I ended with a nice polo and when I was paying she asked if I wanted a poster.
“Sure! I’d love one.”
She smiled, ripped my heart open with those beautiful eyes, and rolled up a poster for me.
“Ah, sorry, is it too much to ask for another one? You see I came here with a friend…”
“Pas de problème. No problem.”
Again, another smile, and another palpitation inside my chest.
I smile, she smiles back, we say goodbye and that’s the end of my love affair with Le Mans.
Inside the car it’s boiling hot, with more than 30 degrees outside, even with the windows open it’s like a franchise of hell in there.
Fred urges me to step on the gas to allow the wind to circulate inside but allas, we’re still inside the city and I can’t speed that much.
Once on the highway though, it does improve a bit.
Not by much, as our sweeted shirts and jeans go to show, but it is better than roasting in the sun when we have to stop.
Beeing respectful to the speed limits meant we often got overtaken, even by urban city cars.
On one of those occasions a Citroen C1 with an Italian license plate and filled with 4 young girls passed us and waved.
Ok, their Italian, and in Italy you love cars as much as you love pizza, right?
Well, almost.
These girls stayed with a us for a while, and we overtook each other a few times, all in good fun.
The BIG surprise was the immense traffic that awaited for us.
I mean, I had never, ever seen anything like that, and I have my share of road trips.
Fred quickly found the answer: It was Sunday, sunny day, and everybody went to the nearby beaches for the weekend and was now returning home.
It took us almost a full hour just to get pass the tolls, let alone the rest of the highway clogged as it was.
Our route was taking us through Paris and that was the biggest possible mistake.
I don’t know if there was any alternative road, but this was impossible.
Not even London during rush-hour has this much traffic.
When we approached Belgium, things got a bit better, and by then we were able to speed up a bit.
I see a small, red car on the horizon: a Lotus Exige R. British plates and right hand side steering wheel.
We drive together and all of a sudden we’re in a convoy with a Porsche Carrera 4; and a 997 Turbo. Yeah!
We speed up and the Exige is the first to throw the towel.
At two tons the Carrera also pulls to the side lane, and 20km/h more it’s my turn to let the Turbo go.
That thing is fast! Seriously fast!
The landscape changes also from yellow in France, to a beautiful green in Belgium.
Obviously they have a lot more rain in here.
You also appreciate the “chateaux” that pop every other mile.
Ah! One of these and my beautiful Le Manian princess :)
It’s getting dark now, we’re hungry, and the Belgium roads aren’t all that good.
There are a couple of tunnels were we have some fun but soon we’re on a detour has the main road to Spa is closed.


Great!
In the middle of the night, sweated, hungry, tired, and in a small road to Spa.
We managed to get there unharmed and were greeted with a town party.
Again: how nice of them!
Everybody was cheering and jumping, and partying in the middle of the streets.
We parked the car in the hotel’s garage and drop our stuff in the room.
It turns out Liege, the near by football team, had just won the Belgium championship, so everybody was celebrating.
Good!
It’s 11 o’clock at night, it’s warm outside, everybody’s happy and there’s a pizza parlor open and with mouth watering pizzas for us.
We sit down and relax for the first time in almost 14 hours.
We’re in Spa! And a good Spa is exactly what we need!

day 1 - from Portugal to Le Mans: 1400kms

It’s 4:30 and I’ve had about 2 hours sleep, tops!
I’ve heard some rain drops on the windows, but there’s no wind and the rain had come and gone, lasting just a few minutes.
I rose myself from the couch where I’d stayed and hit the shower.
When I step out I hear It again: the constant falling of drops of water that scare the hell out of me since I’m about to do 1400kms in one take, in a cocooned environment, in a noisy, unpractical, uneconomical, and un-a lot-of-things car.
I get dressed and while Fred (my co-pilot and admittedly as-insane-as-me car nut friend) has his shower I surf the web for some meteorological updates: trace amounts of rain in Portugal and Spain, and serious amounts of rain for France that shall continue all the way through the rest of our days on the road.
Perfect! Just perfect! And I have the wrong set of tires mounted on the rear….
One last post on the blog to let the world know we’re off, and we go to the garage to puzzle mount the bags into the boot.
10 minutes later, the garage door opens up and the engine revs a bit higher for the car to start moving (it had been reverberating through the entire building for the past 15 minutes while we loaded up the car with our bags, and bottles of water, and cameras, and, well, us!).
When we get to the top of the ramp, it is no longer raining but the road's damp.
No matter, I wasn’t going to speed at 5:45 in the morning, in my neighborhood, when I admittedly have the noisiest car around.
I have to confess that I was nervous and anxious, and shaking inside with anticipation of what we were about to do, but when I saw the first light creeping from the clouds in front of me, the ocean in my rear view mirror, and the road getting dryer by the meter (or mile) I just wanted to step on the gas and devour those 1400 kms as if they were pasta on a italian's plate.
I had filled up the tank on the night before, which was also Fred’s first time in the car.
I enjoyed his F§£@ has the Turbo pushed us towards the horizon :)
I keep forgetting I have a junior supercar with acceleration and cornering speed to match.
That was the beginning of a beautiful relationship that would be constant through the entire trip, and that, for me at least, would make it the more enjoyable and bearable especially on those very tiring moments when things happen to go wrong.
Great guy Fred, but I’ll get to him later.
So now we were getting to the Portuguese mountains, not in a funny, adrenalin filled manner, but in a highway, getting the most out of every mille manner.
There were a lot of cars with French license plates on the road which we correctly assumed to be immigrants returning to France after a long weekend in their native country.
Portugal draws people back, it’s that good! Trust me! (ok, so maybe I’m biased…. But it IS beautiful!)
I made a few videos and we took loads of pictures, the sun rising in front of us, and the Ocean getting further and further away and bellow us.


It’s poetic in a sense that you feel you’re actually leaving something! Not just travelling….
I have a ritual since the very first time I crossed the Portuguese border (I was 21 and went for a 3 weeks trip to Italy! I cherish it to this day! Thanks mum and dad for letting me do it!) : I stop the car, step out, take a picture on either side, and drive away happy.
This time I stopped only on the Spanish side of the border, as due to the early time in Portugal it was still a nonsense to do so, has everything was closed and everyone should be sleeping – at least according to the total absence of people and movement on the streets other then the passing traffic.
We took about one and a half hours to get to the border, and the really strenuous part was about to start.
One good thing to state was that the rain had been a constant threat but never actually happening.
Grey clouds following us, but the liquid droplets never hitting the ground or the car.
Again on the road and through Spain’s amazingly good “Carreteras” we continued at a very good pace (around 140km/h average speed, but never really exceeding that by much has speeding tickets were a very big no-no for the both of us).


The Spanish landscape is a very beautiful one, with vast prairies and cute villages appearing every once in a while.
You see several shades of green and red, and orange and yellow, plus the now-grey, now-blue of the sky above.
When we were passing Valladollid the suspicion was high upon us that maybe I had misjudge the car’s fuel consumptions a bit….
You see I had calculated the car, fully loaded, plus two inside, would do about 11liters per 100 kms.
But what we had been witnessing was very far from it.
Since I was keeping a log of all fuel fill ups, we were able to do the math on the next one.
Sure enough it came as a shock: around 8liters per 100km. EIGHT liters!
In a high performance, turbocharged, petrol burning dream machine.
I can’t say for sure, but I think I kissed the steering wheel.
Can’t say for sure…. :$
Another surprise for me happened when we entered the Bask country has I had never been there and never even imagined that it could be so beautiful.
The roads where tortuous mountain ones, and it only made me wish it was a couple of hours earlier and that all speed cameras were off.
I kept looking out the window to the beautiful forests and crests that accompanied us.
About that, around this time something funny happened: we got a “road-friend”.
A french registered Ranault Laguna was heading the same way and inside were Portuguese immigrants that cheered and waved at another countrymen.
He obviously knew these roads a whole lot better than me (first timer) so I followed him (except inside tunnels where I had to overtake everyone else to enjoy the sound of my exhaust singing it’s beautiful enchanting song to the world and making it echo through the circular amplifier :) and when he pushed his speed above the 180km/h threshold – I just didn’t trust his knowledge of radars that much).
We met at a toll and got side by side.
He was heading to Orleans, hometown of a beautiful friend of fine, and this reminded me to text her and let her know I would be close so that maybe we could meet.
I told them we were heading to Le Mans, and if you can see a person’s thoughts through their smiles, those two were thinking that we were just another bunch of racing loonies in their annual pilgrimage to that cathedral of auto sport – which we probably are, it’s just that our pilgrimage was going to be a bit longer than “just” Le Mans….
We actually stopped at the same gas station further ahead when we had already lost sight of each other, but as I let my car cool down a bit before turning it off (you always should in a turbocharged car) they caught up with us.
The gentleman was really nice and warned us about the French being paranoid about speeding and that we should by no means disrespect the speeding limits.
If only I had remembered this on the drive back….
Fred had noticed we were going to pass Biarritz and none of us had ever been there, so I asked our new found friend what he thought of it to which he replied that it was very beautiful and worth a visit.
We made a little detour and continued for that famous tourist and jet-set destination only to be positively surprised with the attention our little car was getting.
At one point a gentleman in a bright red Ferrari 355 Spider (I drove the GTB model when I was younger and it still rates on top of recollections from my youth) stared at us and pointed as we passed by, and when we stopped to take some pictures by the sea people walked across to the car and peeked inside to check it out.
WOW!
I was proud and amazed at the same time.
My little silver car was turning some heads.
We still had many miles to go before Le Mans so we took off from Biarritz after just a quick stop for pics and some leg-stretching.


The heat was immense by now, and for sure it was over 30degrees outside and I pale on the thought of how many would be inside the car.
Windows rolled down and vents opened we stoically proceeded our drive, but only after a refueling… of our stomachs.
I was feeling the tiredness taking over me by now so I reluctantly handed the car over to Fred.
This was his first time driving the car, and his first time driving anything close to a high performance vehicle, so yes I was pretty apprehensive.
But this was Fred and the guy as always been responsible and mature in everything he does and in his relationship with me (and with everyone else as far as I can see), and he proved it by being extra alert to moving traffic, to his driving, to the car’s quirks…. Everything.
I got relaxed right away.
Sun shades on, eyes lightly closed, and wind embracing my face.
Ah, the feeling of being low in a car that can out accelerate at least 95% of everything else you see on the road, and being safe in it.
Marvelous.
There was another funny moment when a couple of French girls in a VW Golf flirted with us has they pass by.
Cute and thoughtful, they passed us and braked every time they knew there was a radar ahead.
We waved and thanked as we overtook them next (well, I did that, Fred was too busy concentrating on the driving and thinking about his girlfriend back home) and they waved back and kept passing us to warn us of radars.
Another funny moment was about to take place when we slowed for a toll and saw an old Renault 4L with a Portuguese license plate.


The guy saw that we were Portuguese as well and honked the horn and waved, we waved back and kept giving us the thumbs up.
Nice!
By the looks of his car, it seemed he was doing a solitary drive around Europe.
In a 4L! Brave man!
A few hours late it first happeared, in blue surroundings and white paint: Le Mans!
All the green that you see on the way there doesn’t prepare you to what you’re about to see, and we had a BIG surprise in stored.
It’s worth noting that Fred had been in Le Mans last year as a guest to one of the teams that were racing in the 24heures race – the lucky bastard!! So he knew his way around a bit.
But for me, OH MY GOD!
We had stopped at a close by gas station and I was driving the car again.
I knew it was Le Mans, but still, when I saw a road sign saying: Mulsanne….
I mean, it’s the stuff of dreams!!!!


I quickly turned in the pointed direction and there it was: the famous straight!
Speeding through it, recording it on video for posterity and just enjoying the sights, sounds, aromas, after a tiring day behind the wheel…


It was memorable, and I don’t think I’ll ever forget it…
We did a couple of runs, and took some pics, then headed to the hotel.
People on the streets were cheering and waving, men giving us the thumbs up, and everyone generally appreciating the car.
Great feeling, but we were about to feel the same, because as we entered the hotel’s parking lot we saw a pearl white Lotus Exige 260Cup standing in front.
Not to be outdone by a “lesser” car, I parked mine next to it, took out the bags, and headed for the room.
I soooooo needed a shower…
While I was bathing it occurred to me: I was in Le Mans. LE MANS!
I had seen the movie, of course, and read all the Michael Vaillant stories about it, and seen that movie as well, and devoured every magazine that talked about it, but now, this time, ME, I, MYSELF, I was here.
In Le Mans!
Some people go to the beach during their holydays, I came to Le Mans! :) Great choice!
We got out to diner in the city, and after a strengthening meal we got back to the hotel with our eyes half-closed already out of tiredness.
But again, they popped open in a millisecond has now, not only was the white Exige 260Cup there, but ANOTHER yellow on green EXIGE Cup 260 and a red Elise S1 was also there.
What was this? A Lotus giveaway?


I hopped into bed dizzy and drained but with a smile that could light up the dark side of the moon.
And not just our moon, but all of Jupiter’s as well….