Classic LeMans - DDK live thread

[matteo68]

[Nine One One]

Calendar Picture!

[hot66]

Friday :

Who says they don’t race … these 2 came together in front of us at Indy








Campsite ( Jo’s pic )

[hot66]

Within the circuit



911 windscreen ?

[Gary71]

We bailed early due to the weather and made so much progress going north through France we decided to carrry on, 9.5hrs of driving later we were home.

Loads of pics to come (as ever!) but this one of James car stood out so far from the drive down.

[hot66]

Don’t know how you do it Gary but that’s stunning

[hot66]

Sunday we knew was going to be wet and we also had learnt last time that with our camping at Porsche curves, we are basically at the furthest away point in the large Beausjour from the entrance which means a disaster getting out .. so early rise, breakfast in the camp restaurant, tents down and we were off site at 8am to meet at the Mulsanne supermarket and fuel station

[hot66]

A couple left the site at 9:30 and it took them 2.5 hours to get off !!!

[Gary71]

Sam and I got up about 05:30 for the Group C race and it was red flagged afer a lap...

So after about 30 seconds of thinking we packed up the wet tents and headed out. Oddly enough the campsite traffic was fine

Absolutely deserted autoroutes awaited so we made progress and got to Rouen so early we decided to push home.

Sat nav thought the main bridge in Rouen was a bit busy so we ended up driving through the port wondering just where the ‘other’ bridge was… turns out there isn’t one





It was quick and free though and added to some amusement to an otherwise wet and windy drive home. 507miles and 9:31 of driving later we were home by 5pm.

[Gary71]

Some of the squad that made it to the chicane on Mulsanne and remembering that the cars are just the link that bring the people together thought it was important to take at least one picture this time with people in it!

[matteo68]

Tales from another LMC trip - with an ominous alternator warning light glowing red since we left home…

All the way up the Autoroute yesterday afternoon in pouring rain at times with very dim headlights, increasingly slow wipers and indicators barely working, the car stopped completely 950 km since leaving home but 45 km from Dieppe ferry terminal - so near yet so far!

European Assistance dispatched a breakdown truck who recovered us back to their depot as they had no jump leads or booster on their truck - also 45 km from Dieppe but in the other direction and basically a diversified farmyard in the middle of nowhere (Fromager Depannage = Cheesemaker Recovery)









So with the car locked and in a secure unit, we took a taxi to Dieppe to stay in another ibis for the night (no hotels nearby) and then up early this morning to find a French equivalent of Halfords a 5 minute walk away to get two new batteries, jump leads and a booster pack:





Another 30 minute / €130 taxi back to the breakdown depot to replace the batteries and connect one up but leave the other one disconnected (thanks for the superb advice Darren!), another application of Rain-X and the car started straight away:




The replacement batteries will be perfect for GeLo, so no waste of money at least!

So off to Dieppe ferry terminal with no wipers or lights on despite more pouring rain but upon arrival there it was 11.40am and no chance of getting on the midday sailing - DFDS told us there was a waiting list for that one and we were too late anyway, so we’re on the 6pm sailing, 24 hours later than planned and currently sat in the DFDS terminal building for 4 hours till check-in…

[matteo68]

In the meantime nice to reflect on a wonderful trip (the run down from Honfleur to the track on Thursday was magnificent) with such a lovely bunch of people and cars.



However the highlight for me has to be winning the Porsche Club France Concours d’Etat and being presented with an enormous trophy and bottle of champagne by Madame President, Federation of Porsche Clubs of France - the first concours I’ve ever entered and certainly wasn’t expecting to win anything at all!

[Bootsy]

You were rewarded for your battery woes! Well done

I remember when Paul Madden won a similar thing many years ago with his lovely metallic green 2.4S

[matteo68]

Great to bump into @dougieboy1 while the PCF judges were in full flow too! His metallic green 2.4S VIN is only 3 or 4 away from mine!…

[hot66]

….. in the mean time, we all headed north on the cross country route. Weather was terrible and the roads were slippy but we cracked on, all going well until I did a strong pull off a roundabout, went to change into 3rd and bang, the clutch cable snapped !

Exactly what you don’t need when it’s pissing down and on a busy road. I managed to coast quite a long way into a field entrance where I could see the end of the cable and all associated nuts and the wedge that located into the arm goes. Luckily I had a spare cable and wedge … unluckily I didn’t have the very specific M7 nuts .

What a great group the DDK lads are through … off down the road they all went in search of the missing bits whilst Richard was in charge of traffic control …. And the biggest star of the lot, Barry, was under the car in a shot and getting the cable swapped out whilst i stripped out the pedal area.






After messing on with M8 nuts we called off the search, but ultimately Barry wasn’t happy with those nuts as my clutch is relatively heavy so me and Barry went off ourselves on the search with me trying to remember where on the road the bang happened… as it turned out quite close to the roundabout as Barry a man of many skills found the remains .

So all old nuts etc transferred onto the new cable and the interior loosly thrown back together we back in action … if all somewhat wet .

Rest of the day ( 5 hour drive on back roads) was largely uneventful and as the roads dried we could pick up the speed and have some fun whilst stopping for coffee at a couple of lovely villages




Our Sunday night hotel was the usual one we stay at just south of the tunnel. Well deserved drinks were enjoyed