[s-cars] Le Mans Classic: a few comments

[Keith Maddock]

Well, where do I start?  There is so much to be said about the spectacular weekend in France as a guest of the French Audi Club for the LeMans Classic extravaganza.    In short, it was a great deal of fun, and it was great to meet Frederic (thanks to him for making all of the arrangements!), and spend some time talking with Joern about his totally-insane MTM-wagen, also known as "The Black Beast", and cars in general.

BTW, The whole weekend, Frederic kept telling Tom and me that he was going to "dress us for the winter" on the list, so I am still waiting for this treatment from Frederic!!  In the meantime, here are my observations!

Perhaps first I should mention that Frederic perpetually confuses myself with Tom Saltino and vice-ersa,  so I will correct his comments as follows:

***** Begin Corrected comments from Frederic  ****
*	TOM, Joern and I went up to 240 km/h on a close formation a la
Blue Angels all the way to Le Mans (two blue beasts, one black beast).
(Joern hit 270 km/h in the Black Beast, mind you this was all on a autoroute with a 130 km/h limit!!)
*	Joern drove up to 260 km/h during a complete lap of the grand Le
Mans track (8 minutes to complete).
*	Joern, Tom and Keith discovered how the french go from a Club Parade
to their wildest track lap ever in matter of seconds.
*	KEITH drove the blue beast for one lap of the grand le Mans Track.
***** End Corrected comments from Frederic  ****

With that out of the way, here were my highlights of the trip:

-Finally finding out from Frederic, at 11:30 PM Thursday night, the location in Paris that we were supposed to meet him, and that the dress code in the paddock was to be "business casual"  (mind you , I had already packed!!)

- Forgetting to set my alarm for Friday morning, and waking up at 6:15 when I was supposed to meet Tom at 6:00!  I was 30 min late to meet Tom at the McDonald's in Koblenz (where else would two Americans meet in Germany??), only to find that he was similarly late so it was all good in the end.

- Caravaning out with Tom in his borrowed "VW Caddy" to Paris, which had a top speed of 140 km/h at the most on a flat road!  At these speeds, I almost saved enough gas due to the improved fuel economy to pay for the roughly $20 in tolls on the autoroute to Paris.  (brings a whole new meaning to the term Highway Robbery!!!)

- Arriving in Paris to discover the most insane traffic known to man!  While the total level of traffic was no worse than Atlanta, Tom claimed, the control system was absolutely insane.  Imagine a 8-lane wide traffic circle, with NO lane markings!!  The Champs D'Elysse (sp??) was about 5 lanes wide in each direction, also without lane markings!  Total mayhem!

- Sitting in the lobby of Siebel (Frederic's office) while we waited for Frederic to finish up some work, and having the receptionist walk up to us after a while and ask us who we were waiting for.  We both pipe up and try to pronounce Frederic's last name, without much success.  "We're here to see Frederic Le....  Lee.... Le-Hooolier ?"  If it wasnt obvious before that we were stupid Americans, that definately did it for us.  Later asking Frederic, the correct pronounciation is close to Loo-lier with a silent H.

- My jaw hitting the ground when I saw Joern's black beast for the first time.  I never expected those fender flares, holy moly! Quite impressive!!

- After parking my Opel and Tom's Caddy at Frederic's various secret parking spots in Paris, riding with Joern in the black-beast, following Frederic out of Paris.  This included driving down one-way roads the wrong way (following Frederic), and watching sparks fly from under the Blue Beast as Frederic didnt slow down for the speed-humps.

- Picking up Norber's (sp?? Frederic's friend and president of the French Audi Club ) blue S6+ avant on the way out of Paris, and then pulling into the gas station in two blue S6+ avants and the black-beast.  Talk about turning heads!!   I must suggest avoiding French gas-station pizza (hey it was 4 PM and I hadnt had lunch yet!!!)

- Caravaning out to LeMans in the three beast-wagons at rather high rates of speed.  It was a rather insane ordeal, certain French S6+ drivers seem to enjoy either driving at 150 km/h or 250 km/h, but not at any other speed in between....  Joern got his  MTM-wagen up to 270km/h and it was still pulling hard!!!  This ordeal was halted once we came up behind a "Gendarmerie" car, which  was weaving in and out of all three lanes of traffic to apparently slow people down.  We later saw this car stop at the toll booth and everyone in the car was off-duty in plainclothes!

- Following Frederic into LeMans, and driving around in circle after circle after circle attempting to find the right place to go! (This after he assured us he knew exactly where he was going!)

- More to follow tomorrow!  (gotta get some work done here)

Keith





****************************************************************
Keith Maddock, TRW Automotive,  Koblenz, Germany
Slip Control Systems, Systems Design, Traction Control
+49 (0)261/ 895 2474     -    -    keith.maddock at trw.com

>>> "Frederic L'Huillier" <flhuillier at siebel.com> 09:14:58 23.09.2002 >>>
Hi,

I will be short and let Keith Maddock, Tom Saltino and Joern Amundsen
describe you in more details the week end, they had at the Le Mans Classic
Event. I think they had a super week end. Shortly and briefly:

*	Keith, Joern and I went up to 240 km/h on a close formation a la
Blue Angels all the way to Le Mans (two blue beasts, one black beast).
*	Joern drove up to 260 km/h during a complete lap of the grand Le
Mans track (8 minutes to complete).
*	Joern, Tom and Keith discovered how the french go from a Club Parade
to their wildest track lap ever in matter of seconds.
*	Tom drove the blue beast for one lap of the grand le Mans Track.

I can only recommend everybody to attend next time in 2004.

Regards,
Frederic.



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