Behind Enemy Lines
Chaos, Narrowly Avoiding a Buggering, and a Re-Enactment of D-Day.
The Le Mans 24 hour motor race is just about the best lads weekend you could imagine, and for the past few years myself, assorted friends, mates, and mates of friends, have made the annual mid June trip to the La Sarthe race way in the Loire Valley of north western France.
Now, contrary to what you might think, Le Mans is much more than two hundred thousand motor sport anoraks watching cars go around a circuit for a day and a night. This year will be my ninth visit and prior to the first one, I had never had the slightest interest in motor sport. However, Le Mans 24 hour is much more than a car race.
Let’s mention the fun fair. In the UK you can expect the usual array of dizzying rides, air gun shooting galleries, and hook-a duck. The Le Mans fun fair is made up of three breasted women with beards, full-on Harley Davidson’s you can get to 150 mph on a rolling road, shooting luminous clay pigeons out of the night sky with a twelve bore, and men in Breton shirts riding around a wall of death whilst sitting on the handle bars. One year, you could even queue up and pay to be fired out of a cannon into a net. The French don’t seem to do health and safety. Add to this the hundreds of bars and live bands, and you are pretty much there. The Le Mans 24 Hour is like Glastonbury and The Munich Oktoberfest with a car race going on somewhere in the middle.
Joining us this year, is David Johnson, journalist at The Guardian and a regular in my local pub. Dave is something of a paradox. On one hand he is a football loving, beer swilling Brit, but on the other, an accomplished journalist with a big intellect. However, many a raucous evening has been spent downing pints and laughing at his exploits; and when he expresses an interest in coming along I can’t think of any reason why he shouldn’t. He’s a good laugh, he likes a beer, and he is exactly the kind of guy to make the weekend go with a bang. However, when I invited him I hadn’t expected to mean that quite so literally.
Whilst stopping off for food and beer outside Le Havre, we realise that we have forgotten to bring the barbecue kit. We have just bought most of a pig, made into sausages and bacon, and now we don’t have anything to cook it on. Dave, however, has a neat solution. He runs back into the supermarket and steals two of the wire baskets you use to collect your groceries and quickly throws them into the boot of the car. He informs us that we fill one of them with the charcoal bricks and run over the other one a few times with the car to flatten it out and make a griddle to go on top. It’s fucking genius!
After four long and very hot hours, we finally reach the circuit. In previous years we have immediately set up our tents and got our camp organized, but the journey has been so hot we decide to go and sink a couple of cold ones before setting about the task. After all, how long does it take to put up a couple of tents and get a camp fire going?
It is now 3am and we have just discovered another item we have forgotten; a hammer. Moreover, the tents seem to have changed shape and erect differently to how they did last year. It’s pitch black and 4 steaming drunks are trying to put up their tents using a glass pint pot to hammer pegs into ground like concrete. I finally get mine to stand up, albeit baring absolutely no similarity to the picture on the front of the instruction leaflet. However, it will do for tonight and I crawl inside and pass out.
Around 8am I can smell the lure of bacon, and pop my bleary face out of the zipper. Our camping area looks like a cavalry regiment has ridden through it during the night. Dangerous Dave had clearly had even less luck than me in erecting his tent. Ten feet away is just a pile of nylon sheeting - a hand is sticking out from it holding a can of flat lager.
Amazingly our Aldi own brand barbecue is working a treat, and before long we are eating sausage and bacon rolls in the warn Loire Valley morning. It’s not long before Dangerous Dave begins to stir from his pizzled slumber. The can of lager disappeared under the tent, followed by the sound of glugging. Dave finally crawled out from under his tent duvet and looked around. ‘Do you want some breakfast?’ Dangerous Dave rubbed his chops. ‘Damn right, I do’ he replied, before continuing to look around in a confused manner. Someone passes him a bacon roll but Dave waves it away and pulls a six pack of lager from under his folds of nylon. ‘Fuck bacon rolls’ he says as he cracks open the first can and takes a swig. ‘Now that’s a proper breakfast.’
By 9.30am we are ready to venture down to the circuit. Most of us have enjoyed several sausage and bacon rolls, some fruit, and coffee. Dangerous Dave has just finished the last of his breakfast six pack. We pack everything but the tents back into the boot of the car and head off down the track; politely pointing out to Dangerous that it’s going to be a long warm day, so probably best to pace himself a little.
At 2pm we get parked in our favourite track side bar and sink a few beers prior to the race start at 4pm. By 3pm, Dangerous Dave is so drunk he announces that he might nip back to the car for an hour and catch a power nap. A slight groan goes around the table as this is going to involve giving him the car keys. I make it clear to Dave that we only have the one set of keys, so he is not to lose them; and should he venture even as far as the campsite toilet block he is to leave the keys in the exhaust pipe, incase we return and he isn't there. He assures us with hand on heart that he won’t let us down.
At 9pm the rest of us have enjoyed a few pints, a couple of bottles of champers, and a lots of very loud cars. We are all wearing shorts, t-shirts, and a liberal layer of track side dust on top of our sun burn, and so decide to go back to the campsite for a wash and a change of clothes prior to going for dinner. To no ones surprise Dave has not returned and we head to the camp site expecting to find him crashed out in his pile of nylon or someone else’s tent.
At 3am no one is in a very good mood. Upon returning to the car, Dave was nowhere to be seen and guess what? The keys were not in the exhaust pipe. For the last 5 hours we have been unable to change out of our dusty clothes or get our hands on any after-sun cream. To make matters worse the sun has long since gone down and jackets, sweaters, and sleeping bags are all locked in the boot. We can’t even light the barbecue to keep warm because the charcoal bricks are in there too.
At 3.30am, a gangly figure in a Hawaiian shirt came staggering out of the darkness with a stupid grin and swivelling eyes. ‘Hey, I found this fucking great bar in the village and met all these brilliant Danish blokes’ he slurred. ‘I’ve had a right laugh, and they served great steaks.’ Without sharing in his jovial mood the rest of us point out that we have been locked out of the car for the last five hours, with no access to clean clothes, warmth, food, booze, or toilet roll. Dangerous Dave looked slightly bemused before managing to stop staggering long enough to root in the pocket of his jeans. He pulled out the car keys and stared at them in the palm of his hand before bursting out laughing. ‘Oh dear, that was unfortunate.’ he slurred, still giggling, ‘Anyway, I'm off to crash out; I'm shit faced. Nighty-night.’
Dangerous Dave staggered off towards his pile of tent. He pulled it over his head like a giant condom before collapsing in a heap on the ground.
It’s Sunday morning and everyone is gearing up for the day. We head off to the track after breakfast, and after catching up on the over night standings, head off down the fun fair for a couple of hours, before finding a space in the grandstand for the finish. In the interests of keeping the peace, it’s decided to forget about last night and assume that Dangerous will have taken everyone’s annoyance on board. We rouse Dave to tell him we want to get moving but he’s still too hung over to move from his tent pile. He instructs us to pass him a six pack from the boot and he’ll meet us in our usual bar around mid day.
By lunchtime we have ridden some Harleys, shot some big guns, watched absolute nutters riding around a giant barrel on a Lambretta, and seen scantily clad women suggesting they could do obscene things several large pythons.
We arrive at the bar to find Dave at least a six pack and a bottle of champers in front of us. He is absolutely loaded and it’s not long before he announces his intention to nip back to the camp site for a doze. Unlike the previous day, the groans are louder and the issue of taking the car keys is well and truly ruled out. Dave pleads on medical grounds, claiming to have left his inhaler in the car. He makes clear that he realized he’d fucked up yesterday and everyone had been pissed off, and a lesson had been learned. He assures us that, after what happened yesterday, he won’t move from the car until we get back. He finally wanders off and leaves us to enjoy the end of the race.
Today’s plan is the same as last year. After the race finishes, and the winners have stood on the podium, we will dash to the car and hi-tail it out of the circuit before the traffic jams start. Once on the auto route we will head to Honfleur; a beautiful medieval harbour town on the Normandy coast, and spend a couple of lazy days at a camp site close to the beach.
Race over, we dash back to the car to affect a quick getaway and guess what? Dave is once again missing with the car keys. However, it isn't long before his whereabouts become apparent. A gay German biker, built like a wrestler and wearing tight leather bum hugger shorts, is kicking up merry fuck at having found a lanky drunken Englishman asleep in his tent. We drag Dave out and save him from the possibility of a Pulp Fiction style punishment buggering, and finally head north to the coast.
Everyone is keen to get there as quickly as possible. Le Mans camp sites have fewer amenities than a night on the Somme and everyone is looking forward to their first hot shower in three days. After our first nights sleep that wasn't under pinned by the scream of V12 engines, we all awake to a beautiful warm day and decide to head to the beach at Deauville. We have decided to forego our usual breakfast barbecue due to the fact that, unlike the camping field at the race track, our current site is very well kept and manicured. Over the past few days, whenever we have doused our makeshift cooking facilities there has been a cremated square of grass where it had sat.
Someone suggests that on the journey to and from the beach, we keep an eye open for any signs of building or road works. The idea being that we can pinch a few bricks to bring back to the camp site and use as a base for our barbecue basket, and save the lush green grass from being reduced to ash.
Around 4pm we have all had enough sun and pastis and decide to return to Honfleur to crack open a few lazy bottles of wine and skin up the last of the weed. Suddenly, Dangerous Dave shouts to stop and pull over. He’s pretty sure that he spotted a digger and some building works in the narrow lane that we had just driven past. Keen to make a partial amends for his recent antics, Dave volunteers to do the donkey work and go and investigate. Ten minutes later he re-appears from the country lane, weighted down and puffing his way across the road with six large black bricks. Once back in the car he informs us that the place he had spotted had turned out to be some kind of small quarry. He had found a hole in the wire fence and discovered a palate of black coloured bricks.
Once back at the camp site we took them from the boot of the car and tried to make out exactly what they were for. They were the size and shape of gold bars; bevelled along the top edge. We all agree they look like the kind of dress bricks that are used to lay posh herring bone drive ways. However, a brick is a brick and it means we can fire up the shopping basket without fear of torching the grass below it. We arrange them on the ground, place the basket on top of them, and spark it up.
Half an hour later we are as mellow as mellow can be. Bacon and burgers are quietly sizzling over the coals, the Cote de Rhone is like warm fruity velvet, The Doors are serenading us from the car's stereo, and one last humongous reefer is passing between us as we all sprawl out in the late afternoon sunshine.
Suddenly there was a huge explosion. In our stoned state, no one was quite sure where it came from. Had the neighbouring caravan’s propane bottle exploded? We are all sat bolt upright and mouthing words to each other. ‘What the fuck was that?’ Within a few seconds we realise that we are all actually speaking but we have all gone temporarily deaf from the percussion of the blast. What the fuck had just happened? What had just gone bang?
Our question was suddenly answered. A twisted wire basket fell from the heavens and crashed down on the roof of our hire car, followed by a nuclear rain of charcoal nuggets and knackered bits of sausage. As our hearing began to return, the sound of hissing and whining came through the smoke prompting everyone to run and dive for cover. Have you ever seen a cowboy movie where someone throws a bullet into a camp fire? Now times that by about 500.
For the next five or six minutes, this Normandy camp site was transported back to June 6th 1944. Explosion after explosion; lethal shards of suspicious black brick shot in every direction, setting fire to tents as parents dived on top of their children. Panama hated pensioners fell backwards out of their camping chairs; legs akimbo and clutching their chests as the shrapnel whizzed past them.
The carnage finally abated and we came out from behind whatever it was we had hidden behind. It looked like Custer’s last stand. The smoke still rolling over the lawns, tents with fist sized holes still smouldering around the edges, crying infants, seizured geriatrics, and Jim Morrison crooning ‘This is the End.
Once the police had left and we had been ejected from the site, there was nothing for it but to pitch up on the beach until the morning. However, one issue remained and no one was going to be satisfied until we had some kind of answer. We drove back to the lane where Dave had liberated ‘the bricks.’ Even with our school boy French, it didn't take long for us to decipher the words on the side of the palate. They were not bricks at all. They were blocks of bauxite explosive. The usual method of detonation is by way of an electrical charge but it appeared that a prolonged exposure to extreme heat would have much the same effect.
The next day we went back in to Honfleur to use up all our coins on nice cheeses to take home. As we walked down the narrow cobbled lane into the town square, Dangerous Dave suddenly broke off and walked into Café du Opera, the most highbrow place in the town. Through the plate glass façade we watched Dave shrug his shoulders several times and try to shake hands with the Maître De, who was having none of it and looking seriously pissed off. After a few minutes Dave came out and carried on walking as if nothing had happened. ‘What was all that about?’ I asked. Dave carried on, looking nonplussed. ‘I have a vague recollection of going in there on Sunday night and throwing up on the bar so I thought I had better go in and apologise.’
10 Comic Tales of Rock n Roll Disaster. (Click Here)
10 Comic Tales of Rock n Roll Disaster. (Click Here)
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