Getting there, spectating, and getting back was a 72-hour test of stamina because you didn’t want to sleep during the 24-hour race nor for the four hour build-up to the start... and it was always difficult to sleep getting there, and back, accompanied by the dubious combination of the “Brit abroad” and “his drinking habit.”

For those interested in the cars, the race, and photography it is an opportunity for many camera techniques to be practised again and again as the cars circulate from the traditional four o’ clock Saturday afternoon start, throughout the long June evening hours, eight-hour night session with car’s headlights blazing, and then the long, weary, daylight haul from dawn to the tension and excitement leading up to the 4pm Sunday afternoon finish.

The number of cars bunched together at high speed on the opening laps is frightening... when you witness these cars hurtling down the public road sections such as the Mulsanne Straight (otherwise known as the N138 between Le Mans and Château-du-Loir for the other 51 weeks of the year) at a regular 350 km/h (220 mph) in order to lap the 13,6 km circuit at an average of 250 km/h (155 mph) you get an idea of the spectacle. The fastest speed recorded through Les Hunaudières on Mulsanne was by a WM-Peugeot at a staggering 405 km/h (253 mph)... the trees lining both sides of the road must have been a blur to the drivers!

Which makes me think of a better technique of representing “speed” compared to the usual way of setting the fastest shutter speed on the camera in order to take sharp photos of the cars. I mean, your photos have got to be sharp haven’t they? Well, actually, no! Not always that is. At any lengthy event you have plenty of opportunities to try different techniques - especially “panning” the camera with the cars as they pass by at speed - and using different shutter speeds to achieve different amounts of blur.

The 1978 bright yellow race-winning Renault-Alpine A442/B was an eye-catching subject, and being driven by the all-French line-up of Didier Pironi, Jean-Pierre Jaussaud and Patrick Depailler drove the home fans wild. But I bet most of the hundred thousand photographs that would have been taken of it were sharp - and probably boring. My technique included picturing the cars in action by creating action with the camera.