Quote:
Originally Posted by Le Vieux
Another tack for this thread: the discussion about fastest laps lost me about 50 posts ago.
For the first time since my first visit in the Eighties, we turned up at Arnage Corner only to be refused entry to the car park at 8.45 on Saturday morning because we didn't have a parking ticket. For over 25 years we have bought a ticket on the gate. We were told there was free access into the overflow car park half a mile down the road, but when we arrived there, were also refused entry because we had no ticket.
One of our number enquired at the pay kiosk at Arnage and was told that they had sold out of car parking tickets - even though there were precisely two cars in the overflow car park. The driver of our car went round to the ACO's main office to try and buy a ticket, only to be told that he had to buy one at Arnage.....
We drove away and again passed the overflow car park - now with three cars in it! The ACO must have lost quite a bit on parking tickets.
A separate part of our group went to Arnage for the start at 3pm and witnessed a bunch of car park tickets being handed over to the officials at the corner. He bought one - as has always been our custom - and found a place in the main car park. Upon leaving later that evening, the overflow car park was still virtually empty. At the same time the local police were being very strict about parking in the road, even though there were no "No Parking" signs out till later.
Does anyone have an explanation for this or is it just down to the ACO's sometimes chaotic organisation?
On a separate subject, I noticed that on Sunday the banking at Arnage/Indianapolis was nowhere near as crowded as normal and several of our number remarked on the lack of traffic between the ports and LM, around Arnage on Saturday morning and on our campsite some distance away which was around 25% down on last year. Were numbers fewer or was I just in the wrong place at the wrong time?
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Attendance was just over 249,000, up from 238,000 last year. I heard from someone who watched the race from the Porsche Curves that the crowd looked bigger this year, so probably your second point.