Le Mans 2019 - Raceday Too

Moto2 was the first of a Marquez brothers benefit day. 

British interest was minimal with Jake Dixon on the Angel Nieto team Triumph.

In the end there was a three Spanish rider podium.

I was down behind the VR46 grandstand at the end of the start/finish, queuing for the chance too pee up a wall in the official pissoir, when Marquez was on the podium. Suddenly loads of them in the grandstand starting booing and stamping their feet. Not very sporting.

Back in position and before the MotoGP race there were speeches (in French) and then La Marseillaise. Hardly a whisper from the French. WTF? Tune into a rugby international and especially in Paris the French blow the roof off the stadium with their singing!

Our interest was in Cal Crutchlow who had qualified 15th. And a second choice of Jack Miller from Australia. And of course Valentino.

In the end Miller briefly took the lead in front of us before   Mark Marquez cleared off. Jack eventually dropping to 4th behind the two works Ducatis. Valentino 5th. Cal got up to 6th at one point and faded to 9th.

With racing over the crowds thinned dramatically. We followed them and the queues to get out of the track and into the bike parks were enormous. It took an hour to walk about half a mile and get out of the parking with the bikes.

The system of sticker in headlamp and matching receipt is bolstered by having your log book. It works. 

It works better with a tiny grey bit of card like the French rather than a four page A4 doc like us!

The marshalling of the parking on the exits is terrible with about 30 lines of bikes pushing into 3 lines to get checked. It took another hour and a bit to get out and back to the south of  Alençon.

We stopped at McD for a McPee and a drink.  The place was full of bikers coming and going all the time. Many with yellow UK plates.

This outfit parked in the space next to us. A CB11?  In the sidecar was a child's safety seat.

As it was too early to eat we returned to the hotel via Total. Another fill up.

Once again the goal of 50mpg wasn't to happen. The heavy traffic meant that I was only able to manage 40!!!!

All that 80kph and still that damned low!! 

Well. All except for a blast when some knob on an R1 looked at me and smirked. I dragged away from the lights and knobhead caught me up about 5 miles away when I was adhering to the limit.. 

We ate at Buffalo again. Neill chicken burger and me Tex mix of ribs, chicken wings and chilli con carne. Very nice washed down with a litre of 1664.

On the way back to the hotel I took a pic of the buffalo and the chess piece on the roundabout outside.

Buffalo Grill's red buffalo

Black or white knights

I have no idea what the significance is for the chess pieces and Google was less than helpful on this occasion.

So I have emailed the tourist office in Alencon to see if they can shed some light on them.  It seems some a black knights and others are white.

Update 5th June

Not heard anything from tourist board.