The Maverick won at Le Mans!!!!
Well ok, it won in my eyes as it survived the trip! Absolutely no idea how many miles were covered, it seems it was a minimum of 1100 and that was without the tourist stops and detours we made, so I am pretty happy with that.
A quick round up:
Set off at insane o'clock in the morning to get down to Dover for an 08:30 ferry...
Despite the super early set off time, we didn't factor in that parts of the M1 and the M25 would be closed at this time of night/morning... So we had to put the hammer down immediately and give the Mav a proper work out before we even made it out the country!!!
Luckily we made it to the port with 10 mins to spare before final check-in.
Must say, it is a nice back drop having the white cliffs of Dover behind you!
Once on the other side of the small pond, we headed for a little coastal town called Berck (it seemed aptly named) for some lunch and some sea side ice cream
so far, all the cars were running well and spirits were high as we tucked into some lunch and had a cheeky beer.
Next stop was our accommodation for the evening at a little air B&B we found in Argoules.
Can't grumble at that! It was a lovely place in a nice sleepy little village, a big dinner and plenty of beer to celebrate the first proper leg of the journey, next stop Le Mans!
The journey was very boring, the group we were with wanted to get to Le Mans ASAP to set up camp ahead of a posh evening meal at a local Michelin starred restaurant, food was incredible, but at the sacrifice of an interesting days drive...
Accommodation was less glamourous at Le Mans, but served a purpose, so no complaints whatsoever...
We headed to the track the next day to get some pics of the cars parked up before they closed the roads ready for the racing to commence. Was quite cool driving on a part of the track/road... Yes I know it's just a normal road, but it was very cool all the same!
The next day was spent trawling around the paddocks, which was epic! I have about 1 million photos, but I will just leave you with this one, this car was just awesome, I could have stared at it for hours...
The next day my wife and I broke from the pack to do a little bit of tourism, so we headed into Le Mans proper for a look around the old town, after we sent some pics to the group, it wasn't long before they all piled over too!
An absolutely stunning city and well worth a visit!
Later that day we caught some qualifying which was great fun, then back to the camp for food and beer until the early hours.
The next day was more racing action, getting back to the car it seems someone wanted to play a bit of Ford vs Chevy! Gorgeous Corvette which was also a UK car had parked up next to me.
It was at this point I lost all concept of days/time... but we had many stops like this..
Many French yummy things were consumed!
Then at some point (3am on Sunday?) we went out for some night racing, where I soon discovered I am the worst night time photographer, so I just put my camera down and enjoyed all the action! We went out specifically to catch all the 60s cars, which was just puuuuuuure magic thundering around!
Quite cool to prowl around Le Mans at night in the Maverick!
Then after another day (the same day?) at the track, we rested up and got ready to head home on the Monday...
Not a bad traffic jam on the way back to the camp..
This time we took the scenic route on our own, stopped in some amazing towns, saw some amazing places and had an epic drive! I think Monday was around 9 hours on the road to get to Calais from Le Mans, but it was so worth it! The Mrs has some epic photos, so I will be sure to get some from her to upload if anyone cares?
Back at Calais, we had a horrific queue to get through boarder control, the Maverick got VERY hot, but the fans just managed to keep things under control and when we turned a corner, the wind was in our favour and temps came back down nicely. Lots of interesting cars on the ferry this time!
Once back in the UK, we then cannonballed it back to Buckinghamshire as the road workers did everything in their power to try and close all the roads we were driving on again! We made it through and got home at 23:30... However, about 10 miles from home, I started smelling strange smells, then as cars were coming past me, I thought I could see huge plumes of smoke coming from the Mav...
Vital signs seemed ok and it was driving ok, but at this point I was soooo focused on getting home that I decided not to stop...
As I parked up, I realised what had happened... After this huge journey, 10 miles from home one of the trans cooler lines had split and was leaving a breadcrumb (oil) trail behind me... Yup, you can follow it all the way through the village (oh the shame).
Luckily it hadn't lost all its fluid and I managed to get it patched up the next day and complete the journey to the workshop, resulting in a total win for the trip!!
I have an insane amount of photos (not just of the Maverick), so if anyone is interested I can post some more up, but that will do me for now!
On to the next trip!