Le Mans Classic

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The empty

stands

The last diehards are still hanging around the empty stands. The ultras of motorsport fandom refuse to leave, as though they fear the end of the show will mean giving up on their dream.

A date
with his youth

An old man in a tweed jacket, cap screwed on his head, cleans his glasses with a cloth handkerchief. He must have seen all the big names: Jacky Ickx, Derek Bell, Tom Kristensen. For him, Le Mans is not an event, it's an annual pilgrimage, a date with his youth.

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Deserted track

On the deserted track, a lone marshal picks up the last bits of bodywork, two tyre fragments here, a forgotten fuel filler cap there. Each one tells its own story, an overtaking attempt, an unexpected move, a moment of terror.

In the

paddocks

In the paddocks, the last cars wait their turn to get back into the trucks. A solitary Ford GT40, engine still warm, bonnet open as if panting. In a few hours it will be on the A11, heading for England before being tucked away in an air-conditioned garage until the next historic meeting.

The remaining professional photographers fold up their tripods and pack their lenses into flight cases. They're leaving with their cargo of images, pixelated memories, fragments of emotion at 1/500th of a second.

Me, I'm still here. Not out of nostalgia, but out of curiosity. I want to see it through to the finish, until there's nothing left. When Le Mans circuit is nothing more than a loop of tarmac in the Sarthe countryside.

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