And I knew this was the last chance. The last chance for me to visit the legendary Rouen-Les-Essarts Grand Prix Track this millennium. I had been working in Rouen (Bihorel) two times before but never had enough time to drive to Les-Essarts and search the old parts of this brilliant track. This time I was there alone, had a ‘real’ race car rented from Paris Charles-de-Gaulle Airport and had worked like an animal for two long days to get couple of free hours on the daylight.

So there I find myself driving in the hideous midday jam of Rouen and towards this little town of Les-Essarts. If you guys visit Rouen or Paris sometimes you ought to know how to get there. You aim at A13 motorway from Rouen to Paris. After driving some 20 km there is a lane to a very idyllic downtown of Les-Essarts. Of course I would have familiarized myself there with Stella Artois and Amstel but the nature of the trip stabbed me like a cold knife. After gliding through the downtown I came to T-junction which had a sign "Circuits A-B-C" and my heart jumped. I decided to follow where that sign leads me (not realizing that I was actually driving the road from Scierie to Paradis) and it soon pointed me to turn to the right (just before Paradis). So I was lead to straight little road surrounded by thick forest (driving through the forest in a straight line from Paradis to Beauval) when I saw this beautiful Mademoiselle hitchhiking on the right side of the road and no one else around but let’s not get in to that…

 At Beauval, Circuits –sign lead me left, to steep downhill –section towards Sanson and eventually.. to the legendary hairpin of Nouveau Monde. Still I didn’t realize where the actual hairpin located and drove straight downhill to this little village and had to park the car and sniff a little bit this beautiful scenery. Man.. I was there, thinking every single lap I had driven there and all the gang driving GPL wondering what the hell is there behind those bollards.

Okay… accelerating towards Six Freres and now realizing the exact location of the hairpin. Three-lane road it was and wonderful thing was that I found this turn-off at Six Freres, parked the car there and took this beautiful panorama showing the Six Freres and the road leading to the hairpin. (Check out the difference of the right-side scenery in GPL)

Already getting those "some freak" -looks of the French by-passes I lifted the clutch, burned some rubber (Fiat Palio..yeah right) and drove a very steep road (actually T1-T2 counterclockwise) towards the pits. Seeing the old pit-area popped a sad tear into my eye cause so little was left of it. The pit surface was cut into pieces, dug over to mould and restricted, the stand was only a stone base but like a bright light in the dark forest there was that light brown farmhouse on the left side of the track at Paradis (check it out in GPL).

With a tear in my eye I yelled PO and with cold tires cruised T1, T2, Six Freres and just enjoyed the feeling of ‘being there’. At Nouveau Monde there was a STOP -sign and I pulled the car next to it. It was darn chilly there but only a t-shirt on I ran over the track and took these two pictures.

Now it was time to get back to our office but luckily I still got some old track to drive. First there was Sanson. It was definitely steeper in every way than in GPL and very slow. Funny thing is when you drive at les-essarts you think the elevations of the track are quite great but IRL it really knocks you out.

Yep, the last corner I left behind was Gresil which I didn’t see much because of the sand pile. I slowed down to see that Gresil - fast and dangerous turn was now cowered with moss. It had to be wider before cause now it was hardly two racecars wide and with fear I thought myself driving there over 260 km/h... maybe next time I’ll take a shovel with me, dig that sand pile out of my way and slide like no man has slided there before.. in this millennium. Au revoir until next time!