Before the main event starts at 15:00hrs on Saturday, there will be two support races. However on Sunday 12th June there was quite definitely the cutest support race of all.. Le Canard de la Sarthe.
This ‘race’ has become an important part of the build up to the main event, It is not strictly an ‘endurance race’ in human terms but 900 metres is quite a long way for a small plastic duck. Yes.. a duck ! 20,000 yellow ducks were launched into the river from one of the bridges and the race began! We don’t have the winners time but we do know it was yellow and we also know that plenty of money was raised for the Centre de l'Arche de Saint-Saturnin for hospitalised children and the Handi'chiens d'Alençon.. We gather Handi-chiens are dogs trained to help disabled people and act as companions.
Back on the race track there are two more support races.
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“The Road to Le Mans” : on November 13th last year, the Automobile Club de l’Ouest announced that it would organise a race for LM P3 cars entered for the ACO series and GT3 cars entered for the Michelin GT3 Le Mans Cup on the famous full Sarthe circuit ... The 60 minute race will be held in the morning before the main race. The teams can have one or two drivers and the race includes a compulsory pit stop.
The other race is the The Ferrari Challenge, which is reckoned to be one of the biggest and most admired blue-riband single-make championships in the world. The series was created in 1993 and all the races have FIA approval which guarantees top-level organisation and safety at each event. A field of 61 cars will race on Saturday morning ahead of the 24 Hours.
Jock Simpson.
