During this year’s 24 Hours of Le Mans there was some discussion on Clubtalk of the corners Indianapolis and Arnage being tight (for Le Mans) and dark during the night as the group followed Nord Sterner Patrick Kelly’s effort in the famed race.  I’m teaching myself video editing so I thought I would put together the linked video from my 2015 Le Mans.

The thread got me reminiscing about my trip to the race in 2015 along with Nord Sterner Paul Olson and a couple of Paul’s friends. For spectators at Le Mans there is an entire cottage industry of services and experiences you can buy such as parties with retired drivers and helicopter rides during the race.  An experience that caught our eye was a Le Mans at Night experience. Basically they took us to various places around the track in the middle of the night.  At the agreed hour,  British guy picked us up with a van and we took off bouncing down what in many cases were not roads at all. We went to the far reaches of this massive track – 8.47 miles around. If the guy abandoned us, we would still be lost there somewhere.

Much of the track is regular roadways. For example, the run from the Mulsanne corner to Indianapolis is the road that connects of villages of Mulsanne and the outskirts of Arnage. It is roadway D140. We cut through backyards and farm fields and as you will see in the video, he took us to where most don’t goand for good reason. I recall stumbling through the very dark woods, trying to use my iPhone as a flashlight, and being led right up the guardrail in various places around the track. It was a very memorable experience. Mostly I remember the track being being very dark and then cars with very bright headlights blasting by at incredible speed. Check it out for yourself here:

So in thinking about this I reached out to driver friend of Nord Stern David Murry for some first hand experience. He quickly responded with this:

I thought night driving there was much easier than places like Sebring. Look how reflective and well painted the white lines are and you can see the turn arrows painted that help with references as to where you are and where to turn. The brake markers are reflective and the guardrails and trees reflect light really well. When you are around other cars it’s even better with their headlights helping too.

I always thought LeMans was generally pretty good to drive at night. After the Dunlop bridge that left/right is a bit dark and a few other places but overall pretty good. In 1998 when I was there with Porsche’s LMP1 car, we had an electric short issue which caused our headlights to go out when we went to the brakes and come back on at turn in when we released brake pressure. 

I went through the infield when I was there during the race one time and it blew my mind how big it is. You can certainly get lost and have no idea where you are or where the track is. A tour with someone that knows it would be worth it for sure.