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24 Paris Scutineering
25 Saint-Malo
26 Haute-Goulaine
27 Limoges
28 Toulouse
29 Biarritz
The Bretagne might be the most rustic part of France with its harsh coastal line but certainly this added the
charm of the first two legs. After the classic with the visit at Le Mans yesterday the journey did not lead to the
south as usual but further north to Saint-Malo. After a late finish in the evening the first cars were lined up in
freezing temperatures early in the morning to take another long day on the road, today without the stop on
one of the race tracks but with no less than 3 timed special stages on closed country roads taking more out
of the drivers and the cars than a track visit ever could. Unfortunately the late Prince Song “Sometimes it
snows in April” could be taken serious today as the teams were welcome at the coastal line with some light
snow showing the conditions they had to run all the days and the temperatures to numerous volunteers had to
adapt to on the time and stamp points. Nevertheless a good amount of people could be seen on every
Optic2000 shop along the road welcoming the tour as the name giving sponsor. The highlight of the day was
certainly the first part along the steep rocks of the Atlantic coast giving rarely seen sights during this year’s
Tour.
But this was not all that was new but certainly on the second day one could attest that there is a new
contender for the overall victory of the competition class. After years of the eternal duel Caron/Lajournade
early on the first special stage and especially at Le Mans the DK-Engineering prepared Ford GT40 of
Smith/Cottingham could set an explanation mark under their ambitions to compete. After setting the first
mark with 7 second on Caron at the first special stage it was a massive lead at Le Mans giving them a minute
advantage over the competition on day one as Caron ran into trouble early in Le Mans. Caron seems to be
back in the game after setting the best time on one of today’s special stages for the first time this year with
the other two again dominated by the British GT40. After the second day the silver GT40 is leading by 2:17
minutes on a duo of Jaguar E-Type of Lajournade and Favaro with Caron now in third in his Shelby Cobra.
Tomorrow will lead from Haute-Goulaine to Limoges with two further special stages and the visit of the Val de
Vienne Circuit. It will be interesting to see whether the GT40 could keep up the pace and the reliability as
several GT40 led in previous years but rarely saw the finish line of the Tour Auto Optic, this year staged in
Biarritz.
Furthermore the Ligier previously entered by Paul Knapfield is again in the lead of the later Prototypes, now in
the hands of Mr. John of B. The regularity is led by a trio of Ferrari but all within a few seconds this will
probably change in the next few days.
We will keep you up-to-date with the Tour in the next days and hope you enjoy the images of the landscape
and the cars.
Images … Peter Singhof
www.ClassicCarPhotography.de
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