Welcome to the "Your First Time at Le Mans" story series.
I decided to break this huge week+ long experience into smaller sized and self-contained stories you can read either in a sequence or in the order you prefer.
I hope you enjoy the stories as much as I did writing them!
Feel free to reply if you have any feedback, or if you had similar experiences and want to share. I read and get back to all replies.
If you really liked the article, it would be amazing for you to share with others who might also enjoy it!
Without further ado, today's story is:
Chapter 3: Why go a week early?
The 24 Hours of Le Mans race is from Saturday at 16:00 local, to Sunday at 16:00, of course.
But we arrived at Le Mans the previous Monday.
Why, I hear you ask? Well, I also didn't know when I signed up for it, but now I do.
They say that "going the whole week is the way" to experience Le Mans.
Of course you can go less days, or even just for the race. And you'll have a fantastic time.
But you will miss some things, and experience some others in a worse way.
What you can miss if you go later
There are at least 3 things you might miss if you go later in the week, and there may be more, but these are my highlights.
Driving on the Mulsanne in 24h vibes
I described my experience of sending it on the Mulsanne with my own car in Chapter 2. Check it here if you haven't read it yet.
Unless you stay after the event, when they re-open it, you can not drive on it from Tuesday to Sunday, as it close it off for the event.
The main difference if you do it later is that you experience it as a regular road and not with the Le Mans flair.
Pit walk, pit stop challenge and walking the start line
This happened on Tuesday. The pit lane was open to everyone and you could go there, meet the teams, see lots of the cars very, very close.
You could even get into the track and sign the start line with a marker as I did!