Parade lap – Le Mans Classic – insurance

[frenchie TVR]

Hi Guys,
I am doing the parade laps with the piston heads group on Saturday 8am at le mans classic (in my TVR Chimaera 500). I am insured with Footman James on a classic car policy and I have the “track day cover option”, but because Le Mans is abroad I am not covered.

Question, does anyone know someone that would cover me just for this, as a 1 off?

Cheers & see you at Le Mans Classic!

Frenchie

[frenchie TVR]

DonkeyApple said:

The most important element of Le Mans parade laps is to steer clear of the French. Having done several over the years everyone has been blighted by French drivers losing control of their emotions and wiping out other cars.

Quite hard for me to stay away from the French, as I am a Frenchman… I am 43 and have lived in the UK for 22 years now, so I guess I am a Frenglish…

I went for the “no insurance and keep well aware of what’s around you and go hard option”… took a friend of mine (fairly hung over who only had 2 hours of sleep during the night, who is a racing driver: he has competed in 3 Caterham challenges seasons) as a passenger, started behind 30 to 40 cars at the 8h00 parade lap, behind some Ferraries, Porsches (I think most of them had forgotten to take their hand brakes off…), Lambos, some older & slower stuff, some other Chimeras, some Astons, etc… and drove hard and fast, without being an idiot, being considerate to others and overtook what I could, when I could … after a while I noticed a car that was doing the same as me, a black GT40 (replica, I think) and followed him (not too closely, off course) and had fun, finishing 6th behind 5 Porsches when we got pulled in as the session finished…

So it’s not a race, but at the end of the day, it does not mean that you are not allowed to have fun, basically, drive within your abilities / abilities of your car / track conditions and not to close to others and overtake when it is safe to do so, and you can have huge fun without smashing yourself or others up… and think when you drive…

I am not an amazing driver, I have done 1 x advanced driving course (1 day) and 3 track days before this and have motorbike riding experience (rode bikes for a few years and ride a 200 CC Vespa every day in London, which I guess teaches you “how to avoid others”).

My racing driver friend said that I did well and I did not scare him once during the 25 minutes sessions (he was maybe still drunk, it was the am session…).

The car sounded glorious (Chimaera 500 with no cats no pre-cats with a strange aftermarket exhaust system) and the most fun I ever had on a track: The Le Mans track suits the Chimaera well, I think (the corners are mainly quite fasts ones and the straights are long) and following one of my “top 10 cars” while doing so: a GT40 was pretty special….

Will try to post some on board videos when I’ll work out how to do *and have time to do so).

PS: Avoid the Frenchmen

Safe trucking, Frenchie!