Jox Jottings - Monday

Now .. this is a bit new to your friendly scribbler so bear with us.. I have a bus pass, a quill and sheets of parchment so don’t expect too much. The aged and infirm amongst you may recall ‘Jox-Jottings’ in the past .. well this is a 21st Century version of that.

Unusually most of the team is here from Day One.. Le Grand Fromage himself, Lennart Sorth, Jock ‘the bearded one’ Simpson and our tour manager and designated ‘responsible adult’ Tony Light. Others will be joining us such as Matthew Coutard our French speaking Welshman ( yes it is a bit unusual) and by Friday pm Ros will be here to help scribble and take a few pics. Even the immortal Janice “Mummy” Minton will be here from time to time . So, in the unlikely event of all of us being sober at the same time, it is actually quite a strong team.

We will be slotting things onto the site when we can because we are also supposed to be producing a few English words for the ACO website. So keep an eye out.

It is not easy to make ‘Pesage’ ( scrutineering to you and me) appear rivetingly exciting and nerve-janglingly dramatic, mainly because it isn’t! Plus none of the ‘officials’are available for comment. But yesterday that didn’t stop thousands of locals cluttering up Le Place de Jacobins and fighting over autographs and photos of their heroes. However we did get some good , if slightly bland, interviews with drivers. They tend to follow the party line.. wonderful car, wonderful sponsors, pleased to back at Le Mans and so on. These are on the ACO site along with other stuff we produced yesterday. Some of the English speaking drivers were interviewed by a French person, then translated into a form of English for us to disentangle and put back into English ‘like what we speak’ !

As far as we know all twenty cars that went through yesterday passed.. however it is unlikely we would be told if they hadn’t.. such is the way things work here.

It was amusing that long after the entries had closed and long after the last possible chance to enter , the #28 Radical Judd SR9 popped up to fill the newly built ( or rather partially built!) garage . Now, it will come as no great shock to discover this is a car entered by a Swiss/French Team…but driven by two French drivers , it might even be painted blue!

For those of you that have been to Pesage before you probably wouldn’t recognise the place. The ‘fin de siècle’ theatre that over looked the square has been demolished and will eventually be replaced by a futuristic , whizzie glass and steel architectural pile that is totally at odds with the cathedral. The actual scrutineering has been packed into a much smaller area within the Place de Jacobins. It is all a bit ‘compact’ and today, Monday they are running an hour behind schedule and it isn’t even midday yet. Could be a long evening.