Automobile Club de l’Ouest – Circuit des 24 Heures

Everything about the 24 Hours of Le Mans is overwhelming and wonderful.
There are crowds, but you deal with it because it’s worth it. Traveling anywhere by car within the circuit is almost an exercise in futility given how slammed the interior roads get. Cart/​car shuttles around the paddock area aren’t bad since they know all the ways around, but learn to love to walk, particularly if you head out to the campsites.
The race itself? Beyond worth it. It’s a bucket-​list experience for good reason. The cars are so good that it’s a nail-​biter to the very end each year now, and that’s unbelievable when you remember that they have to last for a continuous day’s worth of racing.
I can’t think of a series that’s more exciting, interesting, or wonderful than the World Endurance Championship right now. The technology is insane, and more cutting-​edge than F1 at the moment. Le Mans is their big race, attracting one-​off participants from nearly every form of racing in the world. I have to cover a little bit of everything for work, but this is the series that I can zone out to for hours upon end more so than any of the others. Shhh. Go away. The 6 Hours Of «Go Away» is on. Le Mans is four times that length, and similarly impossible to know when to take a nap/​pee break/​food break during.
The support races rule, too. Aston Martins! Classics! If you don’t ooh and aah at the classic race, you have no soul. It’s a celebration of everything that’s fabulous on wheels.
[Full disclosure: I went as one of Nissan’s guests to look at their thoroughly insane work-​in-​progress: the GT-​R LM Nismo. I’d be writing the same things if I paid my own way, though. It’s Le Mans, dang it. When the rules for the top class actually allow a front-​wheel-​drive nutcase of a car to race, you know you have a cool series that promotes weird, out-​of-​the-​box thinking. That’s the kind of stuff I like seeing: Porsche’s so-​called «cheater wing» that cleverly worked around the rules for this year, the Chaparral 2 °F, the Garage 56 entries, etc., etc.]
Go to Le Mans. Stop making excuses. Start hoarding money. Figure out how to go. And gooooo. It’s a must-​see experience for anyone who loves motorsport.

Super sympa
Un club très actif, que j’ai eu l’occassion de rencontrer lors d’une course auto, vraiment sympa et efficace, ils se donnent le moyen et font de magnifiques manifestations automobile.