Limoges, 27th of April, 2022

After the Tour Auto took off yesterday the French classic now is in full swing as the cars and the drivers are settling in and become more and more sorted. After the first leg driving towards Le Mans and the finish at the Atlantic coast in La Baule the tour left the coastal city this morning no later than 6:30 am when the first car was on its way before the sun was out. Unfortunately, the morning leg again led to the bigger country road and motorways to get to the destination of the first special stage of the day. The streets fortunately got a little bit more interesting after the first race against the stop watch both for the fast competition classes as well as for the regularity with their different target times.

The lunch stop was at the Abbaye de Celles-Sur-Belle, a location that was used in the past as well when a stage was near Limoges. Unlike in the last years the organization took the lunch stops away from the race track although the lunch stop was not far from Val de Vienne, todays track for the races. This is also a classic at the Tour Auto as it is one of the more frequent tracks on the schedule over the last years. The track was very well visited and one has to say that it seems that the Tour got more spectators this year as also most of the roundabouts inside and outside the small villages are showing lots of spectators. One can see that a lot of them have the entry list printed out from the official website to get themselves informed while watching the show. But it is also obvious that a lot of locals have no clue about what is going on in their area as one is asked frequently what those cars are doing here when standing roadside with a camera in hand.

After leaving Val de Vienne another special stage was on the program. In the hills about 50 km away from Limoges. A very pleasant special stage with a lot of corners and elevation changes kept the drivers busy. As this special stage was close to the finish line the later regularity cars had to take the section by night making the task not easier as the road in the forest was very dark. Watching the cars coming by it was obvious who was running more original head lights and who has upgraded the lights to the needs of a rally going day and night.

Finally, after a total of about 16 hours on the road the very last cars of the regularity crossed todays finish line after 10:30 pm while the competition classes that started earlier were already busy at dinner.

We are in for another short night as the cars will leave again at 7 am for the third leg to Bordeaux. Tomorrow there will be no race but no less than 3 special stages favoring the lighter Touring cars again over the very low Group.4 racers.

Report & images ... Peter Singhof
www.ClassicCarPhotography.de