Week 108: Le Mans, France

I got back from my trip to the USA on Tuesday and Wednesday was the last day of school, thank God! It was only a short day and both kids had plans with friends after school so we didn’t see them until late in the afternoon.

A few months ago, the kids commented that we never take trips that they wanted to go on; they are tired of the trips that I plan. So, we told them that they could each plan a weekend trip for us this year. Ryan quickly said he wanted to go to the 24 Hours of Le Mans Race and luckily our calendars were clear this weekend.

Ryan’s itinerary included camping at the race track. Unfortunately, by the time I went to book a camping space, they were all booked. So, we compromised and I booked a van and we planned to sleep in the parking lot. I was a little nervous about this because the website says camping is strictly forbidden and only cars were allowed. I was afraid the van would be too big, or people would be checking cars overnight for sleepers. Regardless, it didn’t matter. When we showed up to pick up the rental van, they had already given it to another customer. There were absolutely no other rental vans in Stuttgart as it is moving season for the Americans. We decided to just take our car and do our best.

Le Mans is a nine hour drive away, so we left Thursday night after work. I had booked a hotel about seven hours away but about an hour before we arrived, I received a notification that our hotel was cancelled. Things were rough on Thursday! Luckily, Expedia came through and was able to get us rebooked at a super cute boutique hotel in the cutest little French town of Dourdan. We weren’t able to see it as we arrived around 1am, but were able to see much more when we got up Friday morning.

Friday morning, we got back on the road and continued towards Le Mans. We made a small detour to Chartres and checked out the cathedral from the outside. Chartres itself is beautiful! My grandmother visited in the 1980s and loved it as well. I hope to make back for its own visit one day.

We finally made it to Le Mans on Friday around 1pm. Our parking pass covered Friday through Sunday. Although the race didn’t start until Saturday, we wanted to arrive early because we were (I was) worried about parking being available on Saturday. Our parking lot was nearly empty, of course, when we arrived though. We didn’t have passes for the track until Saturday so set off on a walk around town.

It was the hottest day of the year at around 85F and pretty humid. We walked for about 10 minutes and I had already sweat through all my clothes. Matt found a mall on the map and we kept walking just thinking about air conditioning. When we finally got there, it wasn’t that cold and not many places to even sit down. It’s not a great feeling being homeless with no where to go. I was soaked from sweat so bought new clothes from a store in the mall 😂. At that point, I had had it. I couldn’t even consider sleeping in the car overnight with how hot it was. I checked Expedia and found a last minute booking and took it. All the hotels were booked for months so I felt so lucky that someone must have cancelled their room.

Feeling much more hopeful with our hotel booking and my new clothes, we decided to go by the Le Mans Expo Center before heading to the hotel. We did some shopping at the Le Mans boutique and then got lucky and got to see them moving some historic cars out of the museum to prep for display on Saturday. We watched them warming up and then walked up some steps and down a sidewalk.

After a couple of minutes, we realized we had accidentally entered the track area. I do not condone sneaking into places at all! But once we were in, we decided to check it out.

The night before the race, they allow people to walk and bike on the track and it was so cool to see the track full of bikes and hikers. We walked a ways up it and got some pictures under the iconic Dunlop Bridge. We had dinner in the race village and then headed to the hotel.

The hotel I had booked online was an Ibis and extremely expensive at over €350. I have never stayed at an Ibis before and was interested to find it was very similar to a college dorm. We had bunk beds in our room and our entire bathroom was a drop-in unit like on a small boat. But it was a place with four walls and beds, albeit no air conditioning.

Saturday morning was the big day, we got up early and headed back to our parking lot. There was a ton of traffic and our parking lot was almost full when we returned. In our parking lot, there were now several campers! I was so worried our van would be turned away, but that was obviously wasted worry as campers were allowed- no problem!

I have to say, I was not expecting an event of this size or I would have made us show up way earlier. There were SO MANY people there. When we entered the track, it was just crowds of people as far as you could see. Along the track, which is 8.5 miles long, people had already set up chairs, 10 people deep. Afterwards, I read that there were over 77,000 in the grandstands alone, and then another 250,000 without booked seats (we were 4 of those).

We entered the track in time to see some of the qualifying rounds. We were surprised to find out that NASCAR had entered a car into the Le Mans Race. This year was the 100th anniversary of Le Mans and the 75th anniversary of NASCAR, so the two worlds collided to commemorate the year. The NASCAR car was so loud! I’ve never been to a NASCAR race and thought the Le Mans cars were loud until I heard the NASCAR. Even the commentators were commenting on the volume.

We watched some of the qualifying and then walked around for a couple of hours. We walked over an hour and were still only a mile down the track from where we started. We discovered that in addition to the many grandstands, there are so many clubs that each have their own buildings, where you can buy a secondary ticket to enter and watch the race, with food, drinks, and bathrooms; similar to club seats at a baseball game but in a separate building. I will do better next time to research these clubs in advance.

We ended up at a fan zone with a rooftop that was open to everyone. We found space on the edge where we could see the track and set up camp. Of course we forgot our chairs in the car, so Matt set off to get them. The round trip took him 68 minutes.

The fan zone seats were awesome though; we were right by the Porsche Bridge, we had food and drink close by, had an unobstructed view of the track, and were right in front of a giant screen to watch opening ceremony.

Matt returned in time for the opening, which included the French National Anthem, several flyovers, and LeBron James being the honorary starter.

In true LeMans fashion, there were two crashes in the first lap, which took them into ‘caution’ for quite a long time. It had rained overnight and had been overcast all day, but the sun came out and we quickly found ourselves burning up. Matt scouted out a new viewing spot from a hillside across the Porsche Bridge and we moved over to the shade, where we had an even greater view of the track. This place was also less crowded and seemed to be the best kept secret of Le Mans.

We watched for five hours and then decided to go take a nap in the car and allow our phones to charge. It was a forty minute trip back to the car and we made several stops in the grandstands to take in the race from the starting line- it was awesome.

After a short nap, we headed back to the track in time to see the fireworks and the drone show. We retook our places in the meadow by the Porsche Bridge and watched for another two hours. At 2am, we finally headed back to the car, again stopping in the grandstands along the way.

I can’t believe how many people were still there! I had foolishly expected the race to empty out overnight, but I would guess about 75% of the people that were there at 4pm, were still there at 2am. So many people just laid down in the grassy spots, or in camp chairs to sleep. I was not prepared for this level of dedication!

We headed back to the car for sleep. I was still afraid no one would be camping. The parking lot had cleared out some, but there were still a lot of cars. I saw several cars with the windows covered with people sleeping in them and even a few tents (even though camping is absolutely not allowed in the parking lots), but everyone was keeping a low profile.

We made camp in our own car. We brought several car shades and lots of cardboard to cover the windows. We put down the seats in the back for the kids to sleep. Matt and I slept in the front, but it was a tight squeeze for all of us and the luggage in our small car. We could hear the cars all night and Matt’s poor knee kept cramping up, but we made it. So glad we only had to do this for one night.

Sunday morning, we crawled out of car and found that just about every other car also had people crawling out of it. Everyone sleeps in their cars there! We brought water for tooth brushing and wipes for a quick “shower” then headed back to the track for the bathrooms.

I do have to comment and say this is the only place I’ve ever been where the men’s room line was longer than the women’s! We could walk right in to the women’s room, but every men’s room always had lines of 30+ people waiting. This was worse in the mornings because all the car sleepers were brushing their teeth.

We got coffee, watched another two hours of the race, and then got on the road to head home. Sadly, we did not make it to the end of the race at 4pm, because we had to get the 9 hour drive started. We were able to track the race from the car, and Ryan’s team (Ferrari) won!

I am so happy we went on this adventure! This is not something I would have ever planned but it was such an experience! I would compare it to the attending the Coronation, where the excitement of the crowds lifts you up. It was so exciting and so fun, while still being so challenging! On Sunday morning, the first thing we said was “We made it!” I also personally learned that I need to chill out! I was worried about so many elements of the trip; parking, camping, sleeping; but it was all wasted energy. I need to take a page out of Ryan’s book and just go with the flow more often.