Latest / BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show / Le Mans Travel Advice: Beer or Moped?

Transcript

Le Mans Travel Advice: Beer or Moped? · BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show

• 0:00
  John Summers is the motoring historian.
• 0:02
  He was a company car thrashing technology sales rep that turned into a fairly inept
• 0:07
  sports bike rider hailing from California.
• 0:10
  He collects cars and bikes built with plenty of cheap and
• 0:12
  fast and not much reliable.
• 0:15
  On his show, he gets together with various co-hosts to talk about new
• 0:18
  and old cars driving motorbikes, motor racing, and motoring travel.
• 0:35
  Good day.
• 0:36
  Good morning, good afternoon.
• 0:37
  It is John Summers the motoring historian with Mark Gamy.
• 0:41
  And unusually for us, we have a themed episode today, mark, don't we?
• 0:46
  You're nodding.
• 0:46
  We do.
• 0:47
  Yeah.
• 0:47
  We, we do.
• 0:48
  We put minutes of research in.
• 0:49
  Say what?
• 0:50
  We might not stop talking over each other in a moment.
• 0:52
  We might break.
• 0:53
  We, we, we've put minutes of research into this.
• 0:55
  Yeah.
• 0:56
  Fully.
• 0:56
  Yeah.
• 0:57
  You described it as 10 earlier, which, uh, but the producer was saying to me
• 1:02
  as we were joking about in the last pod, the Ronnie Corbert and the producer,
• 1:06
  the producer, Eric was saying to me that they, he prefers us off the cuff.
• 1:10
  He thinks we're better off the cuff.
• 1:12
  He probably means just ramble less and stay on the point, doesn't he?
• 1:16
  Not off the wrist, off the cuff.
• 1:17
  Yeah.
• 1:19
  No, no, no.
• 1:20
  At least I think that's, I I think that's, uh, what, what he meant.
• 1:23
  Yeah.
• 1:24
  I, I hope that's what he meant.
• 1:25
  But look, I am really gonna, there's a serious point here, and that serious
• 1:29
  point is, is that instead of rattling on about irrelevant stuff like music and
• 1:33
  things in the episode, which you can do.
• 1:35
  We should at least give the listener some of what they came
• 1:38
  for, which is they came for Lamore.
• 1:40
  So we, you and I have both been to Lamore.
• 1:43
  I'm gonna begin, and this is a storytelling podcast, so I'm gonna
• 1:46
  begin with a Lemore story, or more or less a story, more an anecdote.
• 1:52
  I went one year and for separate reasons that we may talk about further
• 1:56
  into the pod, the rest of my group, the, the other three guys I went
• 2:01
  with decided they would leave early.
• 2:03
  Just to do with some rain and so on.
• 2:06
  Exactly right.
• 2:07
  I'm just wussies, right?
• 2:08
  Just absolute bloody, you know?
• 2:12
  Now feeding into my decision to do what I did was the fact that I had taken the
• 2:17
  not great decision to camp in a bivy bag.
• 2:20
  Which listeners you may not know is like an army thing where it's like
• 2:25
  a large canvas bag where you can put your sleeping, where you can
• 2:29
  put your backpack and your shoes and your clothes and all of your other
• 2:33
  camping kit at the bottom of it.
• 2:35
  And then you can have your sleeping bag inside it, and then you can
• 2:38
  zip it up above your head and you can sleep anywhere and stay warm.
• 2:41
  And it's really a quite a cool thing and, and really a, you
• 2:44
  know, minimalist cool way of.
• 2:46
  Traveling, especially for people who can't be asked or aren't
• 2:49
  very good at putting out tents.
• 2:50
  So anyway, I was in the bivy bag, it fucking rained and when it rained,
• 2:54
  it rained, rained and there was like an inch of water in in the campsite.
• 2:59
  So I was just like, you know, this is not.
• 3:01
  Bloody cricket, is it?
• 3:03
  So, uh, well, it's not cricket, it's mo Anyway, whatever.
• 3:06
  So the others were like, we we're going, and I was like, man,
• 3:08
  well, I, I don't want to do that.
• 3:11
  And they were like, well, where you want to go?
• 3:13
  You know, you know, and I was like, all right, well I'm gonna have to
• 3:14
  make the most of it whilst I can.
• 3:17
  So I walked from the campsite, which was inside the Bugatti
• 3:20
  circuit up past White House.
• 3:23
  To our March now, this must have been, I went like the three years,
• 3:28
  like, I don't know, like 2000, 2001, 2002, something like that.
• 3:32
  Or 99, 2002 there that it somewhere in, in that era.
• 3:36
  And I went I think three times.
• 3:39
  And they all sort of merged together.
• 3:41
  In my mind, I've just thought of another amusing, uh, anecdote
• 3:44
  to do with a moped and going and getting beer and a counter with aba.
• 3:49
  But that took place in our NIJ village and uh, there is a top tip there.
• 3:53
  Stay in our Nij village people.
• 3:54
  It's conveniently placed and you can walk everywhere and if you've got a
• 3:57
  bike, that is a good place to never done it myself, but should have done it.
• 4:00
  Point of this.
• 4:02
  Early vignette in, in our pod today is I walk down to Iage in the
• 4:07
  middle of the night in the rain.
• 4:08
  And uh, when the cars come, they, you can hear the cars coming
• 4:11
  around Indianapolis and then they, Indianapolis is a righty, isn't it?
• 4:15
  Where you're break in and then they stop and there's that little
• 4:18
  bus stop, lefthander, and then the short, straight, and a right hand.
• 4:22
  Before they go off, down towards White House and, and, uh, I was stood there,
• 4:27
  you could see the brake discs glowing.
• 4:29
  And I stood there for ages, hypnotized, and it was one of the
• 4:33
  single most enjoyable things that I've ever done in Motorsport.
• 4:38
  It really was, uh, the fact that it goes on and on and on and on.
• 4:43
  Is really what sets it apart and sets it apart as visual and ordinary
• 4:51
  and you know, spectator experience.
• 4:55
  Yeah, no, that's fair comment mate.
• 4:56
  I mean, I enjoyed it when we went, we stayed at a little place outside
• 5:00
  that a bunch of my mates who go every year, but there's aji or a gentleman
• 5:04
  who has a chateau outside who sort of puts up people camping in his grounds.
• 5:08
  So there are.
• 5:09
  I mean, they were cold by the time we got there, but there were, there were
• 5:11
  showers and the Ls were quite nice.
• 5:12
  And you know, you camped there and you could park your car
• 5:14
  next to your tent and so forth.
• 5:16
  And he did a little car show after a couple of days where he came, he wandered
• 5:20
  around and if you had a nice car, he said, oh, we're gonna tap you on the shoulder.
• 5:22
  Would you like to be in the car show?
• 5:24
  And so forth.
• 5:25
  Which was good and it was a nice place to stay.
• 5:27
  Very civilized, but it was too far away.
• 5:29
  It was too annoying to get there and back.
• 5:30
  Well, can be, my question is how far away was it and where was
• 5:34
  it in relation to the circuit?
• 5:35
  Because we've jumped, I'll think of details out, we, we've
• 5:38
  jumped right in here folks into like a travel experience here.
• 5:41
  But you gotta understand is Lamar, the start finish is like race circuit, right?
• 5:45
  But the Moza Strait is a main road between some cities in France.
• 5:50
  So where you are.
• 5:52
  In relation to the circuit is important because you can get to the
• 5:56
  circuit on public rows just about, or at least you could years ago.
• 6:00
  They're moving the go posts on all of that, aren't they?
• 6:02
  The other thing is, is ZA is so much more built up now than it used to be, but
• 6:06
  your chateau, where was it in relation?
• 6:08
  I think it was like Southeast, sort of a little bit southeast of the um, or well
• 6:12
  sorry, west Southwest or West Southwest kind of direction from the circuit.
• 6:15
  So it wasn't too bad to get there.
• 6:17
  It was like a 10 or 15 minute drive, assuming that you were gonna be doing
• 6:20
  30 miles an hour only kind of thing.
• 6:21
  It wasn't, you know, yeah, it was no sort of like nudgey bits.
• 6:24
  Of course, there's nowhere to park there.
• 6:26
  So getting there, you know, you would either get one of you to drop you
• 6:29
  over, or you'd try and get a coach, a bus or mini bus or something over, and
• 6:33
  there'd be a couple in the morning cup.
• 6:35
  So it was doable.
• 6:35
  But once you're there, it was a faf to get back there and back.
• 6:38
  I mean I looked and if you prepare to plan sort of a year plus in advance, you can
• 6:43
  Airbnb a very nice sleeps 10 people inside the circuit and merely quite a lot of
• 6:48
  money a night, like 1500 euros, something like that a night, which is a lot of
• 6:52
  money, but not between 10 of you it isn't.
• 6:54
  So, you know, you are then a hundred yards, walk from the marathon straight.
• 6:58
  That sort of difference, you know.
• 7:00
  So you are gonna be probably blocked off, you aren't gonna be driving around,
• 7:03
  but you could get there in advance.
• 7:05
  And then add your electric scooter or Brompton or whatever to get
• 7:09
  around the place and you've got inside access to the circuit.
• 7:12
  I think that's the way I would like to do it next time.
• 7:13
  But this chat was nice.
• 7:15
  It was just a bit of a faff getting in and out.
• 7:17
  It's editor John interrupting with a brief road test report on the Brompton.
• 7:23
  John's selling a Brompton right now.
• 7:25
  I'll post a picture of me riding it.
• 7:28
  I think you'll agree.
• 7:29
  I look ridiculous.
• 7:30
  Maybe partly to do with the fact that it's me, mostly to do with the
• 7:33
  fact that the Brompton is ridiculous.
• 7:36
  It's also the same price.
• 7:38
  It was a proper jigsaw.
• 7:39
  John and I discussed it and he said, I'm not sure if this is the right thing
• 7:43
  to say, but I feel like it's kind of,
• 7:49
  and I went, well, it's for commuting and being in the corner of your flat in
• 7:53
  London if you've got no parking and so on.
• 7:55
  Then I rode it and I got off it and I said to him, it's kind of.
• 8:02
  I mean that in an pejorative kind of way.
• 8:04
  You know, it just, it's like a kind of a, you know, it's got a pedal assist, it's
• 8:08
  got three gears, you thumb the gears.
• 8:10
  It's really quite an interesting, nice piece of kit in Brompton
• 8:13
  and revolving with the times.
• 8:15
  But camping inside the circuit is what most people do camping in and around.
• 8:19
  The start finish is what most people do and the French loves to camp and
• 8:23
  it is a bit of a camping themed.
• 8:26
  Right now after my experiences of camping, we did pivot into a camper
• 8:32
  van at one point, and I would say fucking never again on that.
• 8:37
  And the reason for that is that the drive down there is a big part of Lamar.
• 8:44
  For your Englishman.
• 8:45
  Now we're gonna talk about that separately because there is a heritage of the
• 8:50
  Bentley and Jaguar teams driving to Lamar.
• 8:53
  So when you drive like a hooligan cross France and nearly get
• 8:56
  arrested, which has happened to many Englishmen, not you or I. No, no.
• 9:02
  What you or.
• 9:04
  I've never actually been pulled over in France.
• 9:06
  I would just say, no, I haven't.
• 9:07
  I, I hesitate to say that though, 'cause it's gonna fucking happen, isn't it?
• 9:10
  Mm. But the, the point is that the drive down there was not fun in the camper van.
• 9:15
  So, however great the camping experience was because it spoiled a
• 9:19
  major element of the experience just.
• 9:22
  Fuck on that.
• 9:23
  It was like sitting down at a rock show.
• 9:25
  Now your shadow thing, you get the, you, you forget.
• 9:28
  Of course, the most important thing is, is when you are leaving, there's
• 9:31
  all families on the overpasses, on the triage, waving at the cool cars.
• 9:36
  Yeah, the little kids and stuff.
• 9:38
  Waving at the cool cars.
• 9:39
  Yes.
• 9:39
  You don't wanna be there like the doers and the camper van.
• 9:41
  Not getting no going slowly.
• 9:43
  You definitely don't.
• 9:45
  You definitely do not, I, I, I gotta say Gary, I, I think, I feel like
• 9:49
  now I'm thinking about it again.
• 9:51
  I, I'd fly and buy like the cheapest K five jigs of hour I could find in England.
• 9:58
  That's how I'd wanna do it.
• 9:59
  Now, I think I'd probably fall off riding up the metal
• 10:02
  ramp of the ferry, wouldn't I?
• 10:04
  Right.
• 10:05
  But again, you, you sort of want someone who's got a boot.
• 10:08
  Just riding convoy with someone.
• 10:10
  Let's, but I'm trying to, I'm trying to imagine our fictitious listener wanting
• 10:13
  to 'cause, ironically enough, right?
• 10:15
  The producer Eric, is actually at Lamar as we're recording this for
• 10:18
  the Lamore Classic, as is the other motoring podcast network personality.
• 10:24
  William Ross, the, uh, Ferrari guy.
• 10:25
  They're together.
• 10:26
  I, I, I'm not, I think he's doing Goodwood as well, so I'd be interested to know what
• 10:30
  they, uh, think of it when we get back.
• 10:32
  We may even do it.
• 10:33
  Crossover episode.
• 10:34
  I may even invite you, mark, to do the Cross.
• 10:36
  Cross.
• 10:36
  There's 80 F1 cars, 80 historic F1 cars at the festival of
• 10:40
  speed this week, this time.
• 10:41
  Yeah.
• 10:41
  Let's stay on track.
• 10:43
  Rarely as I, as I do that with Lamar, right?
• 10:45
  'cause the point you made was it's better to camp inside the circuit in a house.
• 10:49
  It's best to be in a house.
• 10:50
  The Chateau was good, but it was a motherfuck getting to and from correct.
• 10:54
  'cause even when the traffic flows, there's nowhere to park nearby.
• 10:58
  And the solution to that is very French solution, which is the bicy, isn't it?
• 11:04
  If, uh, my pronunciation, uh, serves there.
• 11:07
  Especially these electric ones, which leads me onto that little anecdote
• 11:11
  of where one of those years I went, one of the guys I went with had
• 11:15
  rehabilitated like his grandmother's Honda 50 shopping trolley moped, right?
• 11:22
  It was not like your like C 90.
• 11:25
  This guy had like littler wheels, like, and was a step through like a full on
• 11:29
  step little white basket at the back.
• 11:32
  Don't remember the details, but I do remember drawing the
• 11:34
  short straw, having to go.
• 11:37
  Into our NA to buy beer for the four of us at that time.
• 11:42
  And it was the camper van.
• 11:43
  It was the year of the camper van, and I don't remember exactly how
• 11:47
  it happened, but I do remember a very large French genre who
• 11:53
  looked like, do you remember that?
• 11:54
  You will remember this.
• 11:55
  Hello?
• 11:55
  Hello?
• 11:56
  The, the British TV show, which, which listeners really an amusing premise.
• 12:02
  It, it's a classic English fast, but it's set where it's Englishman speaking
• 12:08
  with fake French accents is a resistance worker who runs a cafe in France.
• 12:16
  It's like Nazi occupied.
• 12:19
  France.
• 12:20
  Yeah.
• 12:20
  His name is Renee, and he's having an affair with his two waitresses
• 12:24
  as well as trying to keep his very, this is very misogynistic, actually.
• 12:28
  Usually.
• 12:29
  Oh, was xenophobic.
• 12:30
  Misogynistic like I was, and racist and fully racist against the German and, yeah.
• 12:36
  Yeah.
• 12:37
  Yeah, it was, and, and so it picked a lot of boxes and so obviously all young
• 12:41
  eng, all English people of a certain age la this shit up and all of us understand
• 12:46
  the cultural reference of Alo Lo.
• 12:48
  And why the, how was I talking about the John looked like Rene presumably.
• 12:53
  No, he looked like the English airmen.
• 12:56
  They did the, the one that has the terrible accent that is the policeman.
• 13:00
  He is an English man.
• 13:01
  Oh, good moaning.
• 13:03
  Good moaning.
• 13:03
  That one.
• 13:04
  Yeah, exactly like that.
• 13:07
  Well, anyway, but he wasn't good moaning.
• 13:09
  He was like, 'cause I tried the whole Oh, non, non.
• 13:15
  Yeah, I, I, I tried that and, and he was having none of that.
• 13:20
  And tr and uh, and you know, we, we, I can't remember where he was cross
• 13:25
  about, I can't remember what I'd done.
• 13:27
  I was, I remember the moped was loaded with beer, and I remember
• 13:31
  that when I resisted the moped or the beer being impounded,
• 13:37
  that it was like me or the beer.
• 13:39
  And I remember that when I got back to camp.
• 13:41
  I was like amazed that I'd escaped, not arrested, and with the moped, and they
• 13:47
  were pissed off that there wasn't beer.
• 13:49
  All the money had gone.
• 13:50
  I was like, I bought the beer, but the policemen confiscated and they were
• 13:53
  letting you were supposed to believe that, like you've stolen the money.
• 13:56
  And I remember being like, you fucking idiots, which they were.
• 13:59
  In fairness, I, that year I went with one guy who was a friend of to you.
• 14:03
  Seems a bit harsh.
• 14:04
  Sorry, doubting you seems pretty harsh.
• 14:07
  Yeah, but this was the same guy that rode away from me when I
• 14:09
  fell off in Germany on the jigsaw.
• 14:11
  Oh, that prick.
• 14:12
  Oh, okay.
• 14:13
  Yeah.
• 14:14
  Him and another guy, the guy who encourages to do the camper van,
• 14:18
  he worked for a large oil company.
• 14:20
  I can't remember your name if you listening, but
• 14:22
  you'll remember who you are.
• 14:24
  And he recently received a job offer.
• 14:27
  You'll be able to guess the oil company now, based upon the fact that
• 14:30
  he'd received a job offer to go and work for a very well known Italian
• 14:35
  firm in their motor racing team.
• 14:38
  And do you know what he'd said?
• 14:40
  No.
• 14:40
  He wanted to stay in like Macclesfield or Ham or whatever, horrific northern
• 14:46
  British town, beginning with M and he didn't wanna move to Italy and
• 14:49
  he didn't wanna, and I was like.
• 14:51
  Weren't you interested in working for, you know, that company with the
• 14:55
  Yellow Shield and the black horse?
• 14:56
  You know, weren't you kind of interested in that?
• 14:59
  And he went, you know, no.
• 15:00
  I was like, oh dear.
• 15:03
  Oh dear.
• 15:04
  So, so I remember that show, all that a touch.
• 15:06
  That was the year of the heat stroke.
• 15:07
  I walked the circuit and I got all the worst heat stroke I've ever gotten.
• 15:12
  I passed out in the bushes just somewhere on the approach to sza.
• 15:27
  I am gonna give you my selmo story.
• 15:29
  It's with Nick, the lad that left me in, uh, in Germany, his mate, Ian.
• 15:35
  Who was a bit like Greek and nice guy, huge, big personality.
• 15:41
  A little irritating in, in a way that grief isn't, you know, Greek's mellow.
• 15:45
  Ian was a bit like, listen to me, but you know, nice enough guy, Nick knew
• 15:50
  him through, he was like a distributor.
• 15:53
  When Nick like it, distributor, this is how we, we all, uh, we all knew
• 15:57
  each other, but Ian was a Ford guy, so, you know, I had a bit of like bonding.
• 16:00
  He was from Essex, you know, so a bit of bonding with him around that.
• 16:04
  Ian really appreciated the learning.
• 16:06
  Really appreciated seeing your IRS 2000 that day at at your house.
• 16:10
  Thank you for your time.
• 16:11
  I hope Nick didn't treat you the way that he treated me.
• 16:14
  Unfortunately, I feel like Nick just doesn't understand how
• 16:17
  to make friends with people.
• 16:18
  Nick, if you're listening.
• 16:19
  I forgive you 'cause you're probably a, you were a miserable person then and
• 16:22
  you're probably still miserable now.
• 16:24
  And I don't wish any more misery on you by hating on you.
• 16:27
  I don't hate on you.
• 16:28
  You gave me a really, really good story to tell.
• 16:30
  Had you come back and picked me up and never would've won the Suzuki G six R and
• 16:34
  maybe I never would've filled my garage.
• 16:36
  So your asshole actually helped me out, Nick.
• 16:38
  But Ian, you were a great guy and I really enjoyed doing them
• 16:41
  on with you and that suggestion.
• 16:43
  Late at night when we were walking back from the Chinese mailer in and
• 16:47
  air to be like, you know, the cars on Za, they're just down there.
• 16:52
  We could just like walk down that person's driveway and into their
• 16:55
  back garden and probably see 'em.
• 16:57
  And I was young enough and foolish enough to be like, fuck yeah, let's do it.
• 17:01
  So we did.
• 17:02
  You could lie on the bank.
• 17:04
  We were lying on the bank looking through the bushes, and I remember
• 17:07
  watching the Corvettes pass with flames outta the exhausts.
• 17:11
  The road must have been probably three feet from the hedge, and we were like
• 17:16
  lying, looking under the pritt hedge.
• 17:20
  The following year, the guy had like closed his gate and we
• 17:23
  weren't able to do that anymore.
• 17:25
  And, and looking online now, it seems that all of that land use in that part
• 17:30
  of the circuit has changed In the what?
• 17:33
  25, 20, 25 years Since I did that.
• 17:36
  That's my best of my memory to be like lying looking.
• 17:39
  I feel it's like a NASCAR driver.
• 17:41
  Oh, I knew I wanted to be a racing car driver.
• 17:43
  I climbed up the fence and looked in and saw the cars racing.
• 17:47
  It's almost like that.
• 17:48
  So, yeah, so the Corvettes particularly a wonderful piece of theater.
• 17:52
  And in that moment I was, I couldn't believe how close they were.
• 17:55
  I couldn't believe how loud it was.
• 17:57
  It, it, it was, was a mixture of high end Formula one bra, haha.
• 18:02
  And the island man tt and rallying.
• 18:05
  You know, it's a little lane and it's really fast and it's in your face.
• 18:09
  That's.
• 18:09
  Fire and breaks and potential death.
• 18:12
  Yeah.
• 18:12
  And the callbacks are typically, well, at least traditionally, were the loudest.
• 18:15
  So, you know, it's not a surprise that you pick them out.
• 18:18
  Um, story if you have one.
• 18:20
  I mean, I dunno, I, I've got a specific one really.
• 18:22
  I mean, I, I will say that, you know, we touched on it briefly.
• 18:25
  The drive down for English folks is often a tradition.
• 18:28
  I know a guy, you know, good mayor of mine.
• 18:30
  I haven't spoken to Rages, but I, he's still great guy.
• 18:32
  Stu goes down every year with his buddies and he drives his TVR down
• 18:37
  and various other things, and they've got a little crew of them that go, you
• 18:40
  know, the, the, the whole, they, they deliberately drive quite a long way east
• 18:44
  so they're not on the direct route to have more fun on the roads on the way
• 18:47
  down, so they're not getting driving through, you know, a speed trap every 15.
• 18:51
  We stopped in a really nice little French, one of the classics at a little French
• 18:55
  town squares with a bistro sort of thing, and, you know, rocked up and had a really
• 18:59
  quite nice and cost-effective, you know, sausage baguette with havoc, fruit, and,
• 19:04
  uh, a beer, and then carried on the dry.
• 19:06
  It's, it's a really delightful drive.
• 19:08
  You're lucky with the weather that year.
• 19:09
  It can be really nice, pleasant way to get down there.
• 19:12
  This is why the opening sequence of Lamar with McQueen
• 19:16
  driving there is so important.
• 19:18
  The drive.
• 19:19
  To the circuit, the concept, they call it laer.
• 19:22
  It's important to understand the context of it.
• 19:25
  The other thing is it's important to understand that the town is
• 19:28
  actually not conveniently placed for you to access the circuit remotely.
• 19:33
  There's no nearby any nearby, any hotels nearby.
• 19:36
  They'll all be booked up with the 24 hour bike grand pri.
• 19:39
  Bike race, like Moto 24.
• 19:41
  Did that with my family a couple of years ago.
• 19:43
  I think I mentioned it on a separate pod, but we stayed at an Ibis
• 19:46
  hotel right by the train station.
• 19:48
  It took us more than two hours to walk.
• 19:50
  Yeah, I mean that's, that's fine.
• 19:52
  Unusual.
• 19:53
  I mean, it's a big circuit.
• 19:54
  It's a really big circuit, and it's France, not England.
• 19:58
  So.
• 19:58
  Things can be spread out 'cause there's enough room.
• 20:01
  So it is more like American distances in between things.
• 20:04
  So, and you know, if it's a hot day, it's hot and dusty and there's
• 20:07
  a lot of people there and you know, there's not a lot of shade.
• 20:10
  So you, you do want to be careful of take a hat, you know, have plenty of water.
• 20:16
  If you're gonna buy a t-shirt, take out a small mortgage before you go
• 20:20
  because it's gonna be 120 quid for whatever the shitty t-shirt is.
• 20:24
  That is too busy.
• 20:26
  The Moto ones weren't that expensive, I guess.
• 20:29
  Motos not LA more, is it?
• 20:30
  Yeah, and we were, I, I've allowed for estimated inflation there, but I remember
• 20:34
  the t-shirts when I went there, which it must have been 10, 15, 20 years ago.
• 20:38
  What, 85 quid.
• 20:39
  So before we talk about the drive down, let's talk about
• 20:42
  any other like, tips around.
• 20:44
  So, so we're saying camping, we're saying drive something decent down there.
• 20:48
  'cause that's part of it.
• 20:49
  What else are we saying?
• 20:50
  We're saying that pro, if you don't like camping, it's fine.
• 20:53
  Just plan ahead and doing it.
• 20:55
  B or something like that.
• 20:56
  If you're a pedal cyclist, that's good.
• 20:58
  If you're a lazy mf, get an e-bike and, and that's probably gonna help you.
• 21:03
  Yeah.
• 21:04
  The only challenge for any of those things is where do you leave
• 21:06
  them if you want to leave them.
• 21:07
  Do you even do that?
• 21:08
  Do you just like sit with it like on the bank somewhere?
• 21:11
  Yeah, you can do, but again, and that would be probably a pretty
• 21:14
  way, pretty good way to do it.
• 21:16
  But I mean, it's all the bits around the circuit are several
• 21:19
  deep around every fence.
• 21:21
  You've gotta mooch out a ways around or be later, much later in the evening
• 21:25
  or the following morning in order to be able to get to the fence unless you get
• 21:28
  there early, early and have your chair and stake out your, uh, square footage.
• 21:34
  Yeah.
• 21:35
  Fuck that.
• 21:35
  I'm not German, you know, I'm not doing that.
• 21:37
  This is the thing with it.
• 21:38
  Some people like to have the chair and sit in one place.
• 21:41
  I like to be a walkie all around.
• 21:43
  Yeah.
• 21:43
  I mean, it's a long time, you know.
• 21:44
  It is a long time.
• 21:46
  It is.
• 21:46
  And you are also doing yourself a grave disservice if you don't walk.
• 21:51
  All around the pits in practice and you don't do the fun fare at night
• 21:57
  and you don't walk the whole circuit.
• 21:59
  You know there's a lot to do in that 24 hours, isn't there?
• 22:02
  It's like rock shows and stuff around the start.
• 22:05
  There's a firework display in the night.
• 22:07
  I should mention this French band called As.
• 22:11
  Who myself, Ollie and Dana watched some of, and Ollie cites them as being
• 22:16
  the worst band he's ever seen live.
• 22:18
  He's like, we're Ash and worse than crowbar.
• 22:21
  And I'm like, dude, I don't like to be negative.
• 22:23
  You know, there may be Ash and uh, I don't like to be negative,
• 22:26
  but possibly they even were.
• 22:28
  I mean mean crowbar worth shit though.
• 22:30
  I should just say listeners, that both your hosts have seen crowbar at least
• 22:36
  four times together and probably, and I've seen crowbar six times I think altogether
• 22:42
  and, and I wish never having gone to see Crowbar, never having gone to see
• 22:46
  Crowbar and never having enjoyed them.
• 22:48
  The fact that they're still, just to be clear here, they were always the support.
• 22:53
  We only ever saw them supporting somebody else.
• 22:56
  What I don't like, crowbar not knocking the car don't like us.
• 23:01
  If you're even, I mean, I'm sure they probably don't like
• 23:03
  us and fair play to them.
• 23:04
  I would back them in their right to do that.
• 23:06
  But yeah, I mean that is a dedication to providing pretty poor rock.
• 23:11
  Over a lot of time.
• 23:13
  Don't they call it metal core now?
• 23:14
  Isn't it like a style of metal that you and I never got into?
• 23:17
  What shit?
• 23:19
  Moving on.
• 23:20
  Moving on.
• 23:22
  Um, music.
• 23:23
  What music should we do in this episode?
• 23:25
  Tradition would suggest we should do that sort of weird French pop that is
• 23:31
  being played at 14-year-old discos, which has often got English lyrics in it
• 23:36
  that are deeply oversexualized for the age group that they're being played to.
• 23:40
  That would be a traditional thing to do.
• 23:43
  I can't pretend to know that genre well enough, if I'm honest.
• 23:47
  Yeah, we, we'll have to make do with that air sexy boy track, won't we?
• 23:51
  We just have to do, yeah.
• 23:52
  I mean, that is a good track there.
• 23:54
  There's a lot of that sort of thing, uh, I played in France
• 23:56
  and, um, fair play to them.
• 23:57
  Uh, and look, I mean, I, I always say this about any travel, have the radio on.
• 24:02
  Conflict through radios is if you're traveling through countries
• 24:04
  in a car especially, gives you a real flavor of the country.
• 24:07
  You're going through it.
• 24:08
  It adds value to the reason why you're not flying over that country.
• 24:12
  You're driving through it.
• 24:12
  You get a real, you have to get out and fill up the car.
• 24:14
  You have to, you know, you stop and get food, you know, you
• 24:17
  get a flavor of the country.
• 24:18
  Anyway, the same thing with the radio.
• 24:20
  To that end, and this ties completely to Lamar.
• 24:22
  It's an important thing to understand if you've not been to France before,
• 24:25
  if you don't know France, is that they have toll roads and non toll roads.
• 24:29
  And toll roads are like American highways.
• 24:32
  They're perfectly maintained and so on.
• 24:34
  And you always see a lot of cars on fire in France for some reason.
• 24:37
  You notice that always a lot of cars on.
• 24:39
  Whatever.
• 24:41
  Maybe they just, I don't know what, why the call, what the call, so
• 24:44
  they don't drive that fast, do they?
• 24:45
  And, and they do like police crazily.
• 24:48
  But isn't it like 130 Ks?
• 24:50
  Isn't that the, the limit on the, yeah.
• 24:52
  Anyway, the, the shtick I'm talking about is that thing in your Google Maps app
• 24:56
  where you can be like, avoid highways.
• 24:59
  Because if you avoid highways as I've been doing, I've been doing this in
• 25:02
  England recently, my word driving England on the A roads, it's slow.
• 25:06
  In every town it's like a huge bottleneck.
• 25:09
  But in between the towns, it's the green and pleasant land.
• 25:12
  How it's road about and Americans and other people from around
• 25:15
  the world travel to sea.
• 25:16
  You know, it's really there.
• 25:17
  Like the cots worlds is really, if you.
• 25:19
  Ignore all the traffic and the new ugly houses on the edge of town.
• 25:24
  Cotswolds are exactly as you would imagine them to be if
• 25:27
  you were like a reader of Yeah.
• 25:29
  Yeah.
• 25:29
  If you watch Miss Marple Mysteries made in I, if you ride a motorbike,
• 25:33
  the traffic isn't even that bad.
• 25:35
  If you ride a motorbike, the traffic isn't even that bad.
• 25:38
  I fully agree.
• 25:39
  The point is that France is the same, right?
• 25:41
  That if you stay off those main roads and if you go through the small
• 25:44
  towns and villages, oh my word, it is a rewarding travel experience
• 25:49
  and uh, yeah, I encourage visitors doing them off, do it that way.
• 25:54
  The flip side of that is if you need to make quick progress.
• 25:56
  And if you are doing a fly in and out, it can be very useful depending
• 26:00
  on where you're coming in and out of.
• 26:02
  I'll give you the example.
• 26:02
  If you fly into, um, burgundy, sorry.
• 26:05
  No, the, uh, yeah.
• 26:05
  Um, what's the, uh, place at the bottom?
• 26:07
  Bordeaux?
• 26:08
  Yeah, Bordeaux.
• 26:09
  If you plan to Bordeaux, rent a car, and then you're flying and
• 26:11
  you're driving down to the Pyrenees.
• 26:13
  That section of Poage there, it's just about the least used section of Poage.
• 26:19
  But if you just want to thrash down to the mountains, I think I saw four cars
• 26:23
  on it, and we arrived at sort of eight 15 guy in the car, in the rental car
• 26:27
  blasted down to um PO for the PO GP.
• 26:30
  And it took about an hour and 15 minutes, about 95 miles, something like that.
• 26:34
  Hardly any other cars, no speed cameras.
• 26:37
  And when I spoke to the host about it and he said, yeah, the
• 26:39
  French don't sort of resented the money it got spent to build it.
• 26:43
  So they don't use it and they don't want to pay.
• 26:45
  They'd rather just drive.
• 26:46
  And I am, and I can, you know, respect that.
• 26:48
  Yeah.
• 26:49
  Doesn't mean you can really blast down there in northern Spain.
• 26:51
  I did a trip to Northern Spain with Dana years ago when at that time the.
• 26:56
  EU had recently paid for loads of like payout of highway toll roads to be built,
• 27:02
  but the trucks didn't wanna pay the tolls, so they stayed on the a. On what?
• 27:07
  On what In England would be like the A roads, you know, driving through the
• 27:11
  tows and you'd, you'd see, you'd be on the toll road and you'd see the trucks
• 27:14
  driving slowly on the, a roads between the towns, like running parallels.
• 27:19
  So I don't know why this, what the situation was there,
• 27:21
  why they didn't want to use.
• 27:22
  The main roads didn't wanna pay, didn't wanna, because the motorway services
• 27:26
  there were absolutely deserted.
• 27:27
  You'd like stop at motorway services in the middle of the day.
• 27:30
  And if it was like one in England, it'd be like rammed with people.
• 27:33
  They'd be like hundreds of cars there and there'd be like three cars there
• 27:36
  and you'd go in the dining area and they'd be like all the staff there,
• 27:40
  but nobody actually eaten any food.
• 27:42
  It was really peculiar.
• 27:43
  I mean that was, this was what, 20 years ago now?
• 27:46
  So it's maybe, uh, maybe different now.
• 27:48
  The point is that you can really.
• 27:51
  Cover some ground.
• 27:52
  I mean, I set the, we had a BMW, like an F 93 2 8 BMW is the rental car,
• 27:58
  which is our new car then, so it shows how long ago it was, and I remember
• 28:00
  setting the crews at a speed that began in miles an hour with a one and a two.
• 28:07
  I mean, that is our, like I also being asked by a Passat turbo diesel with German
• 28:15
  number plates on it, and I was like, oh, that'll be the sales rep, won't it?
• 28:19
  That'll be a sales rep on the way to meet somebody in the south
• 28:22
  of the country kind of thing.
• 28:24
  You gotta make progress.
• 28:25
  I, I will say in the summer, be real careful because the,
• 28:29
  the, the end roads are fine.
• 28:31
  But the poage does get jammed.
• 28:33
  This is, isn't it?
• 28:34
  We're now stepping away from my experiences in Northern Spain and
• 28:38
  stepping, yeah, this is back in France, but in the pay is, you know, France is
• 28:41
  the most visited country in the world.
• 28:42
  It's a big country.
• 28:43
  It's got a pretty good road network and it's well maintained and it's
• 28:47
  a decent speed of throughput.
• 28:48
  But you will get traffic, you know, you will get, and as the further south
• 28:52
  you go, the worse the traffic will get.
• 28:54
  So, be clever, set off early, or don't mind driving in the night, you know, and
• 28:59
  you can make some really good progress.
• 29:01
  But that's the way to do it because that's the way that you'll, you can use the road
• 29:05
  effectively and cover some serious miles and you know, if you've got a family,
• 29:09
  plug 'em in in the back and let 'em sleep.
• 29:11
  You know, if, if you drive, drive it on on a bank holiday or a weekend, you
• 29:14
  know it's gonna be heaving and you're gonna spend ages and ages and traffic.
• 29:17
  There's a movie, isn't there?
• 29:19
  I can't remember the name of it, with a Mustang.
• 29:21
  He's got a Mustang and a GT 40 and it set in France and there's a scene
• 29:25
  where he has to drive elo, wins the Monte Carlo rally or something.
• 29:29
  He has to drive through the night from the south of France up to Paris.
• 29:33
  I vaguely remember.
• 29:34
  It's black and white.
• 29:35
  I can't remember the name of it.
• 29:36
  It's not very good for the pod, is it?
• 29:38
  My God.
• 29:39
  Not all the detail we give, isn't it?
• 29:41
  It's all the detail we give.
• 29:43
  I know, I know.
• 29:44
  But the beauty with it is, is I am gonna be able to edit myself in.
• 29:47
  And it sounds unnatural because I always take up the time to
• 29:50
  set up the microphone again.
• 29:51
  I don't just hit record on the pc, so when I interrupt myself, it goes like,
• 29:57
  and it sounds like completely different.
• 29:59
  So it's gonna, it'll be fine.
• 30:01
  It'll be just perfect, smooth.
• 30:04
  The movie is a norm at un, A Man and a Woman.
• 30:09
  It's 1966.
• 30:11
  It's slow, but it's worth watching for the cast.
• 30:16
  Alright here, endeth part one.
• 30:19
  Of this series on Lamar, and this is the end of our thoughts on accommodations,
• 30:24
  logistics, and, and practical stuff.
• 30:27
  The future episodes are around history more.
• 30:30
  If I can be coherent.
• 30:48
  This episode has been brought to you by Grand Touring Motorsports as part
• 30:51
  of our Motoring Podcast network.
• 30:53
  For more episodes like this, tune in each week for more exciting and educational
• 30:57
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• 31:14
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• 31:17
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• 31:21
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• 31:22
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