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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