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….