Starting the Trip
Woke up crazy early with my coffee thermos, grabbed my notebook and camera. Drove three hours through French countryside roads singing terrible car karaoke. GPS nearly screwed me twice with dead-end farm paths – classic rural France navigation chaos.
First Look at the Track
Parked near those famous bleached-white grandstands from the 60s. Place was silent except for wind whistling through cracked concrete. Took fifteen minutes just staring at the S bend downhill section where legends like Clark and Stewart raced. Felt chills imagining 1960s engines screaming here.
- Snapped pics of original Armco barriers, all rusted and bent like modern art
- Touched the weather-warped start/finish line – concrete felt warmer than expected
- Found wild strawberries growing near Dunlop Curve (ate three, tasted like victory)
Tracking History
Climbed the hill towards Six Frères corner. Muddy shoes from morning dew, almost ate dirt slipping on grass. Local groundskeeper saw me flailing and started ranting about how they removed the bridge section in ’94. Said something poetic like “Ghosts don’t need bridges” before shuffling off. Wonder if he tells that to all tourists.
Tried sketching the esses section in my notebook. Wind kept flipping pages like the track was resisting. Ended up with more coffee stains than actual drawings. Perfect metaphor for trying to capture racing history honestly.
Wrapping Up
Sat on an abandoned tire pile watching sunset paint the track orange. Three takeaways lodged in my brain:
- Original pit lane smells exactly like grandma’s garage – oil and nostalgia
- Modern safety standards would crap bricks seeing these elevation drops
- Racing history feels heaviest in forgotten corners where nothing happens
Drove back with gravel still in my shoes and engine sounds ringing in my ears.
