Le Mans

Attending sporting events has been an unintentional theme of this year---and the Olympics are still to come!  Soon after arriving, we went to see France's Rugby team in a friendly right before the Rugby World Cup.  We saw Paris Saint-Germain, one of the premier soccer teams in France, play in the fall as well.  We went to the French Open, as I recently recounted.  The Tour de France will not be coming through Paris for the first time in its history, but I suppose it's possible that we'll take a day trip to catch a stage of it.  We are looking forward to attending several Olympic events, including badminton, volleyball, table tennis, and archery.  And then there was Le Mans.

We received an email a few months ago from some good friends whom we have known for decades.  They said that they were planning to spend a couple of days in Paris because their son, an engineer at General Motors, had recently started working on the Cadillac Racing Team and would have cars that he worked on competing in the 24-hour race at Le Mans.  They hoped that we would be in Paris during that time and we could get together.  

I am originally from Indianapolis, home of the Indy 500, and, although I am certainly not an avid race fan, I do find auto racing somewhat interesting.  And the one time I attended the Indy 500 in person, I thought it was surprisingly thrilling.  So I proposed to Glenn that we look into getting tickets to Le Mans.  When I checked, they were entirely sold out---maybe had been for months---but tickets to some of the preliminary days of practices, time trials, etc., were still available.  We knew that our friends would be there most of the week before the race, so we would join them for a day. 

Our preparation beforehand involved watching "Ford versus Ferrari" on Netflix.  I think it was based on actual characters and events at Le Mans, and we also thought it was a pretty enjoyable film. 

So, a couple of weeks ago, we grabbed a morning train from Gare Montparnasse and headed to Le Mans.  Here I am in a photo-op setting near the track, unable to figure out how to hold my arm to actually complete the number 4.  I guess it was impossible, given my height and arm length.

I would have been happy to just walk around the grounds for several hours and soak in the vibe, but we got to do something so much better.  Brian, our friends' son, spent much of the day explaining his job, talking about how the Cadillac Racing Team is organized and functions, explaining the different types of cars racing at Le Mans, describing the challenges of designing and operating these cars, and basically serving as a super-expert tour guide for us.  We learned so much, and it made the day significantly more interesting.  And, of course, we also simply enjoyed spending time with our friends.  

One thing that I did not understand before going was that there are different types of cars that race (simultaneously) at Le Mans.  (Indy cars are, of course, very standardized at this point, so that they're close to identical.)  There were three classes, and Le Mans crowns winners in each type as well as an overall winner.  (Don't quote me on this, but I think the three types are Hypercars, LMP2s, and LMGT3s.  Hypercars are the fastest.)  I also learned a bit about the history of Le Mans, finding out that once a car was driven for the entire 24 hours by a single driver.  I also learned that manufacturers, such as Cadillac, contract with racing teams that include the pit crews, mechanics, and drivers.  As a result, awkward situations can arise where engineers who have designed the cars and would like to pool performance information across cars can find themselves at odds with the different racing teams of the multiple cars, who are competing tooth and nail against each other.  

The track is very long---about 8.5 miles, compared with 2.5 miles for the Indy 500---and it would have been difficult (impossible?) to walk the entire perimeter.  We did a lot of walking, though, and watched cars practicing from many different vantage points.  

You might wonder whether the food on offer at Le Mans would be any different from what one might get at a similar sporting event in the US.  Yes and no.  We had lunch at a temporary restaurant set up in a large tent.  It was table service, and the atmosphere was a bit on the fancy side.  The menu offered items such as grilled beef tenderloin, truffled risotto, and melon with Serrano ham.  (The food was fine but not up to regular French restaurant standards, I would say.)  But there were also a lot of small tents and trucks offering various food items to go.  There were even some things that would have been right at home at the Indy 500.  Such exotic fare might be unfamiliar to many French customers.  Luckily, they were offered complete with diagrams.

It was a great day at Le Mans, and we were so excited to be able to be a part of it.  We eagerly anticipated the actual running of the race a few days later and were sorry to see that the Cadillac cars ended up worse than expected given their qualifying performances.  But we learned from "Ford versus Ferrari" that disappointment can make you better the next year, so we'll look forward to that.