Weekend clothes packed into soft sided bag….. Check!
Ray-Ban Aviators in the glove box…. Check!
Tag Heuer, Gulf Monaco edition, on my wrist…. Check!
Passports and Euro Tunnel tickets…. Check!
Aston Martin Vantage GT8, in Gulf 50th anniversary colours of course…. Check!
Well then, let’s hit the road and head for Folkestone…
Yes, it’s that time of the year again and just about every serious British motorsport fan is taking their annual pilgrimage, on their way to the Automobile Club de l’Ouest’s twice around the clock race, the iconic 24 Heures du Mans.
And now that we have exited the tunnel, you would be forgiven for thinking that French number plates look awfully like those we are used to seeing in the UK everyday; oh wait they are British number plates…
In all seriousness though, the ACO estimates that anything between 70,000 and 100,000 of the normal 250,000 plus crowd each year are UK motorsport fans and nowhere does this come over more than on the drive down from Calais to Rouen and on to Le Mans. Bored children could almost be pacified into silence by playing “spot the French car” games….
With more than 300,000 fans expected this year, mainly down to the expanded grid filled with current and former F1 drivers (think Fernando Alonso, Jenson Button, and Juan Pablo Montoya), the interest level has never been greater!
So when Gulf Oil asked if I wouldn’t mind driving one of their display cars down to this year’s 50th anniversary celebrations of Gulf’s first win at the Le Sarthe circuit, I had to give it some thought, about two milliseconds actually…
And what a treat it has turned out to be, currently sitting in the bar of the legendary Hotel de France where John Wyer based his JWA team for the big race, the place is packed! Looking a couple of feet to my left, Derek Bell is signing copies of his book for the fans with the queue now running outside the front door, nice work if you can get it at €60 a pop!
For the first time in a very long while, I am attending a motor race, not as a competitor or journalist but as a race fan. Seeing the absolute fervour of the fans in the town square where we have parked our array of Gulf liveried cars that range from our Aston Martin GT8, right down to one of the 1968 Gulf Ford GT40’s, and lots in-between, brings it all home to you. There are even some of the Gulf liveried VW Camper van support vehicles, used for JWA’s Gulf Porsche 917 campaigns of the 1970’s, that are attracting almost as much attention as the race cars!
Bearing in mind that we are still more than 24hrs away from the start and the Hotel de France is about 30 miles from the Circuit de le Sarthe, I personally think that the ACO’s 300,000 fan estimate this year may be a little conservative…
I can’t wait for the racing to start!
