Biarritz, 17 April, 2011
C´est fini!
After almost 2000 km in 5 days with 4 races and several special
stages the remaining crews reached their final destination Biarritz
yesterday evening. It was a long but very pleasant journey from
Paris to the Atlantic with serious competition both in the racing
and regularity classes. The final stage started in the morning with
a direct connection to the Circuit Pau Arnos, a beautiful small
circuit in the hills with permanent ups and downs and a tricky
chicane that is very much a narrower version of the famous
corkscrew in Laguna Seca. After the last races the road headed
west to the Atlantic coast. The best always comes at last so the
nicest part of the Tour was found yesterday in the afternoon when
the cars drove though a forest on small roads were the crews
could take a break for lunch with their given lunch packs as the
last day usually does not have a lunch meeting point. So all along
the road one could see small groups of cars with the owners
sitting in the shadow to take their lunch. People were sitting on
fallen trees in the woods listening to their cars to cool down. After
the drive in the forest the scenery widened up and the road led
over a mountain on a very small road with descents of 100s of
meters to the left and an overlook over the region that was just
breathtaking. As the road was very narrow and unsecured this
might have been the first time during the Tour that none of the
drivers wanted to overtake, even with strong cars like the Racing-
Porsches and Ligiers. Co-pilots took out their small cameras to
take pictures of the scenery, they easily found this time as there
was nothing to navigate on these roads.
Finally the Tour arrived in Biarritz were the cars were parked at
the seaside of Anglet. Much Champagne bottles could be found
standing next to or even on the cars as the crews celebrated their
finish no matter in what race position as every finisher is a winner.
But all things have to come to an end and so the very well
organized 20th edition of the Tour Auto is history and all that
remains are memories and pictures...so stay tuned as our final
galleries with all the cars that took part on this fantastic event will
be on-line later that week.
Text and Images Peter Singhof www.ClassicCarPhotography.de
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