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Post by LandieMark on Jun 5, 2023 21:45:58 GMT
Loving it. Cadillacs sound fucking awesome - like the Corvettes of 20 years ago. Some nutter has entered a Chevrolet Camaro Nascar as well. He must shit himself when he needs to turn right. Atmospheric on the campsite.
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Post by Martin on Jun 5, 2023 23:51:35 GMT
Bucket list stuff for me….enjoy!
Isn’t Jenson Button one of the NASCAR drivers?
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Post by Deleted on Jun 6, 2023 0:07:03 GMT
Just listened to the garage 56 car, sounded pretty special to me, being an old git.
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Post by LandieMark on Jun 6, 2023 7:26:56 GMT
Bucket list stuff for me….enjoy! Isn’t Jenson Button one of the NASCAR drivers? I can't imagine you camping, Martin. The WEC site has been acting up amd I don't have a program, but indeed he is.
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Post by Martin on Jun 6, 2023 7:29:17 GMT
Bucket list stuff for me….enjoy! Isn’t Jenson Button one of the NASCAR drivers? I can't imagine you camping, Martin. I might in order to get the full Le Mans experience.
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Post by PetrolEd on Jun 6, 2023 9:35:00 GMT
Awesome, your site looks very sophisticated by Le Mans standards, where you camping?
just worked out its a Monday you've turned up on. Your a bit keen aren't you? I'd be partied out by Wednesday.
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Post by LandieMark on Jun 6, 2023 10:36:42 GMT
Awesome, your site looks very sophisticated by Le Mans standards, where you camping? just worked out its a Monday you've turned up on. Your a bit keen aren't you? I'd be partied out by Wednesday. We arrived Sunday (Saturday overnight from Portsmouth to St. Malo), staying at Houx as usual.
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Post by LandieMark on Jun 6, 2023 10:47:09 GMT
We drove around part of the track. Tim and a mate in the Sagaris and I got a ride in one of the lads Stage 2 RS6 with a Miltek.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 6, 2023 14:20:49 GMT
Is that a Sagaris in front of the camera car?
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Post by LandieMark on Jun 6, 2023 18:32:35 GMT
Indeed, the one i had a ride in last year.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 6, 2023 19:15:15 GMT
Bloody brilliant.
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Post by Big Blue on Jun 6, 2023 20:05:32 GMT
Looks very civilised for a French motor race campsite. French MotoGP is the place to be in terms of raucous campsites: Matt Oxley wrote a piece recently and posted some videos on his Twitter feed: basically, revved out engines, anything that burns on fire and lunatic bikers having fun. The Dutch TT organisers send people there to see how it should be done, which is some gauge of lunacy! Cheap weekend tickets is the secret to the biggest MotoGP crowd of the season and an atmosphere that is unrivalled.
Enjoy the week: keep us up to date when sober.
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Post by Martin on Jun 6, 2023 20:09:34 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Jun 6, 2023 20:34:23 GMT
^, OUCH! Is that common?
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Post by PetrolEd on Jun 6, 2023 21:05:10 GMT
3k for 4 nights in a posh tent kind of misses the point of LM.
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Post by Tim on Jun 7, 2023 7:38:39 GMT
3k for 4 nights in a posh tent kind of misses the point of LM. Sounds VERY cheap compared to what some friends were telling us about Glastonbury
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Post by LandieMark on Jun 7, 2023 8:12:09 GMT
I've paid £1k for camping at Houx which is inside the circuit including overnight ferry each way with a cabin.
The glamping pods, teepee and Flexotel kind of defeat the object and you definitely don't get the camaraderie of being in a tent as part of a group.
The ACO have dropped many bollocks this year though. Halving the number of showers and toilets on the campsite is really helpful.
Houx gets quite rowdy with antics described by Jeff happening from tomorrow onwards.
We were speaking to the owner of Travel Destinations amd they have pretty much taken over the Porsche Curves campsite which may be a decent balance of comfort and atmosphere without getting too expensive.
They open today and we have been invited to take a look.
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Post by Big Blue on Jun 8, 2023 10:54:03 GMT
What are the views on the SC rule this year? Lots of hate from what I see.
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Post by LandieMark on Jun 8, 2023 11:28:14 GMT
I think it is a tidier way of doing it.
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Post by Sav on Jun 9, 2023 18:15:44 GMT
Definitely looking forward to the race. Quite a lot of negativity around the new Safety Car procedure and BOP for LMH V LMDH. I don’t agree with any of it. It’s a motor race, and the organisers reserve the right to put cars back on the lead lap and bunch the pack up. The old system was not particularly understandable, and lead to massive gaps between cars on restarts if they were pitting. If I were running it, there would just be LMDH. LMDH is the spirit of Le Mans for me – the days of the Porsche 956 or the the GT1 cars that were available to customers for a long time. LMH is a bit like the latter years of LMP1, with technical intricacies that people don’t care about. You’ll have a seriously slow Vanwall and Pug - then Ferrari and Toyota. None of which race in IMSA. Everyone else is running LMDH in both WEC and IMSA, which already has a customer car with Jota running the Porsche 963 (well its not a Porsche but nobody cares!)
Without LMDH you wouldn’t have Acura, Porsche, Cadillac, BMW, Lamborghini or Alpine involved in top-line prototype racing. Involved, being the operative word. Prototype racing has always killed itself with regulations that are too technical, too costly for a championship that only has 8 rounds a year, one of which gets almost all the attention. BOP is needed between LMH and LMDH, otherwise LMH cars would be comfortably quicker on raw pace being bespoke machines.
The real solution is to ditch LMH, and focus the BOP on one category with multiple brands with LDDH. That’s how GT3 categories are like. A BMW M4 GT3 could probably not match a Ferrari 296 on raw pace in DTM, but thanks to BOP it can. Different concepts of course, front engined v mid-engined. I look most forward to 2024, when GT3 cars are eligible to race in WEC. At last, the return of real customer cars at Le Mans for GT. Valentino can race his M4 GT3 for example, guaranteed to bring dozens of fans just for him, I know it – I saw that effect at Brands Hatch earlier this year for myself!
LMH is a bit like GTE for me, where the ACO stubbornly can’t accept that someone’s concept is cheaper, more effective with more brand variety. GT3 cars should have been in WEC years ago.
The NASCAR entry has been modified a lot. Carbon brakes, paddle-shift and a lot more downforce. A standard Cup car on a road course looks like a beast, braking distances for example in a different postcode compared to the regulated classes of car at Le Mans. It would have been a mobile chicane as standard; it still might be in the race for the prototypes. The #56 entry v GTE cars will be a closer matched affair, I guess the stock car gets down the Mulsanne really well, whereas the GTE cars will catch up in the corners.
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Post by Roadrunner on Jun 9, 2023 19:57:03 GMT
/\ /\ /\ I have absolutely no idea what that is all about, but you seem to know so I shall just nod along in general agreement and take another sip from the beer I am not drinking.
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Post by LandieMark on Jun 9, 2023 20:02:00 GMT
I can't agree in full. The Hypercars make Le Mans for me - they are so batshit crazy, it wouldn't be the same without them.
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Post by Sav on Jun 9, 2023 23:42:43 GMT
LMH cars are sort of in limbo today. Bespoke, but not as fast as the old LMP1 cars and pegged back significantly so that LMDH machines can compete. Don’t get me wrong, you’re right, as a technical exercise the cars are great – but they can’t achieve the speed that they could. If LMH cars could strut their stuff, maybe there would be a clear purpose, but that will never happen because of BoP.
Hypercar was almost a joke last year, the Toyota would have absolutely trounced the ageing Alpine if it hadn’t been for the ACO’s EOT (Equivalence of Technology) in every race. But to create a show, the vastly superior Toyota was made to look like it was somehow on the same pace as the Alpine Hypercar.
LMDH is not as technical, it’s an off-the-shelf package dressed up to look like an OEM entry. This is true, but without it there wouldn’t be all these marques competing. I mean if you look at the LMDH cars in IMSA races this year in America, the racing has been exceptional. The days of big-budget bespoke factory entries are fading, you see this everywhere – from F1, sportscar racing to BTCC. Manufacturers increasingly aren’t interested in that approach, they want to be associated with racing without paying for everything.
The accusation will be that LMDH has a lot of badge-engineering. Well, everyone should be used to this by now. An Audi Q7 v Bentley Bentaya, for example!
One might wonder, where is BMW, Acura, Lambo in that case at Le Mans? There wasn’t the space for them in 2023, LMP2 is being phased out for 2024 except Le Mans, where there will be far fewer LMP2 entries – allowing for more LMDH cars. That’s going to increase economies of scale for LMDH even further, more customer cars being produced, more parts being available. LMDH is like GT3 but for prototypes.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 10, 2023 0:12:41 GMT
Motorsport rules are so bastardised now that I try not to think about them. I cannot see the over complication of rules without the potential to crate the finest race cars, minus the cheating due to said rules. Roller skate derby anyone?
Simple but effective rules, consistent adjudication and an ability for smaller teams to compete once they have been built up by investment from journeyman team to top contender.
No, not holding my breath because its all political and money oriented. Damn shame.
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Post by Big Blue on Jun 10, 2023 18:49:59 GMT
Some big offs in the wet. Lots caught on slicks in a deluge.
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Post by PetrolEd on Jun 10, 2023 21:52:28 GMT
Loving it so far. Proper weather, dry in one place a deluge in another. Big smashes and still anyone’s race
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Post by LandieMark on Jun 12, 2023 19:38:34 GMT
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Post by LandieMark on Jun 13, 2023 20:54:39 GMT
It turns out the Bentley belongs to the Hotel owner. He drove it from the hotel an hour south of Le Mans to Caen port - it was on our ferry. Huge respect for that.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 14, 2023 1:51:38 GMT
Respect for that indeed. Nice to see the old barn stormer being used.
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Post by Andy C on Jun 14, 2023 8:35:35 GMT
Looks like you’ve had a great week mark
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