La Rochelle, 27th of April
C´est fini, this year's Tour Auto Optic 2000 is history. Five days
after leaving Paris the remaining of the 250 started teams reached
the finish line on the quay of La Rochelle at the Atlantic coast. On
their blast through France they covered 2187 kilometre, mastered
12 special stages on small country roads and through the
mountains plus 4 appearances at the Circuit du Mans, Magny
Cours, Albi and Val de Vienne. There is no other event in the
classic car diary that combines the fun of a road rally on the
countryside with the sportive character on the race track and
closed off stages like the Tour Auto. Now already in its 22nd
edition the TA became an institution that attracts both the
sportive drivers and regularity fans to enter their car in April for the
first big driving event in Europe.
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Most of the teams are regulars to the TA but the few new ones
every year learn very fast that this is not a relaxed cruise from
lunch stop to coffee break with a little bit of driving in between
neither it is a permanent waiting at one of the checkpoints for the
allocated time but it is 12 hours of driving on every of the 5 days.
It is a very demanding challenge for both the cars and the drivers
as one could see in the faces at the arrival of every stage,
especially at the end of the week: tired but satisfied when the
co-pilots hand over the papers of the day to the marshals and
enter the park fermé through the arch at the entrance. Just a
small glass of Champagne or a beer to cool down before picking
up the luggage at the service wagons and leave for a desired
shower in the hotel.
At this time the cars are handed over to the mechanics to check,
make a service or repair, some small one but also major rebuilds
on some of the mechanical components. Many cars have wounds
from unwanted contact with French countryside fixed with duct
tape, some even wear the matching colour showing that one is
prepared for this “repair”. As the cars are lined up in order of their
race numbers at the parc fermé one could see that the gaps in
between are getting bigger every evening due to mechanic failures
forcing a premature retirement.
The last of the five days today led from Limoges to La Rochelle,
the capitol of the departement Charente-Maritime. Soon after the
start in the morning the last of the 12 special stages was held in
Darnac, with the first two cars in the competition within half a
minute after 4 days this was the second to last chance to attack
the leader. Carlos Monteverde, who dropped of the leading
position after a penalty on day 4 was able to cut off 9 second of
the leading Jaguar of Jean Pierre Lajournade leaving him all
possibilities for the overall victory at the final race meeting in Val
de Vienne, the race track that was last driven in 2011. Here
Monteverde managed to come home third behind the AC Cobra
Daytona driven by Kenny Brack and the AC Cobra of Ludovic
Curon gaining the needed seconds to reinstall himself on top of
the leader board just with the last stage driven.
The fast Cobra Daytona suffered mechanical problems all days
and was not present at all special stages so it was taken out
early from the circle of favourites. Curon was fastest overall during
the days but with a penalty of 6:30 minutes on day 2 he was just
able to step back on the podium behind Monteverde and
Lajournade.
The other categories were more clear as the Ford GT40 of Phillipe
Vandromme won the category G by more than 7 minutes, the
Ferrari 308 GTB Gr.4 of Andrew Beverly the category I and Erik
Comas the category H with his Lancia Stratos. The former F1
pilot was fastest of all entrants and had a lead of more than 5
minutes in his category at the end.
But you do not have to have a big banger or exotic racer to enter
the podium as there is also the index of performance relating the
achieved time to the performance of the car. Just as in 2012
another Porsche 356 was winner overall, this time the car of
Frederic Puren.
The regularity class was finally won by team Nicoules on Ford
Mustang.
So what is the conclusion after five days: first of all the TA is
superb on the competition aspect and the fun of driving through
the French countryside. Certainly the Grande Nation differs very
much depending what part of the country you choose for the route
and maybe there are even more interesting parts with more
breathtaking landscape like the Provence or the Hautes-Alpes but
still the Tour was another experience not to be missed. Some
might complain on the entrance fees on this sort of rallies as an
entrant with accompanying mechanics, fuel and transport of the
cars to Paris and from La Rochelle might calculate about 20.000
Euros but one has to keep in mind what it takes to organize an
event of this size. Beside all the logistic to accommodate 250
teams and their mechanics plus the amount of helping hands of
the organisation, sorting out all the permissions with the
departements and cities is quit a challenge that requires a lot of
experience. The organisation of Peter Auto succeeded once more
giving the participants a memorable week in France and one
could be curious where the Tour 2014 will lead us to.
This was our final report on the single days of the Tour Auto 2013
Optic 2000 (obviously) but in the next day we do another report on
all the participating cars.
Report & images ... Peter Singhof
www.ClassicCarPhotography.de
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