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

Wed Sep 25 08:16:10 EDT 2002

Mister Tom, sorry Keith,

We are all waiting part 2 !!!!
Parts 3 and 4 should be the wild ones......

Regards,
Frederic

-----Original Message-----
From: Keith Maddock [mailto:Keith.Maddock at trw.com]
Sent: Tuesday, September 24, 2002 3:14 PM
To: s-car-list at audifans.com; flhuillier at siebel.com
Subject: Re: [s-cars] Le Mans Classic: a few comments

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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