View from Pit Lane – Edition 39

Carole Circuit in the sunshine

Circuit Carole – 08/09/10 July 2022 – Part 1

Fortunately for us, the weather was due to hold fair and remain dry throughout the weekend. I say this because we have a problem with the truck’s wiper motor that’s proving somewhat tiresome to fix.

Carole is situated just north of Paris and a fraction south of Charles de Gaule airport, so I tried to time the journey to miss the dreaded ‘peripherique’ rush hour. We hit the outskirts of The Capital with impeccable timing. Although busy, there were no hold-ups and our 6-hour trip was trouble-free, apart from a few isolated spots of rain which caused a little obvious concern. But we arrived with still plenty of daylight to set up camp and we were eating a late supper by 11.30. 

We were a man down (or woman actually) this weekend as Sarah had important wedding organisational duties to perform, but she gave us strict instructions to bring Rik back in one piece.

Echo Corner (the parabolica) at Carole

The next day’s three test sessions went really well ending the day with a good set-up and Rik circulating within a fraction of his best time from last year. Now, Carole is a tricky 1.5km circuit with two hairpins, not Rik’s favourite, and a long bumpy, fast parabolica leading onto the back straight which is crucial to get right for a very fast time. I think another couple of meetings there and Rik would nail it, so to speak, but his times are improving slowly and he’s not disgraced. Again for this meeting, we’ve been amalgamated with the 1000 cc bikes, which makes things interesting to say the least!

The last session of the day ended too late for me to have new Dunlop’s fitted, so that’s the first job for Saturday’s race day. 

I must say that we’ve all fallen in love with the place, me especially. At first sight, the circuit looks old and shabby by comparison to the other tracks we use, but the essentials are all there. It’s well run and clean, just to prove that you don’t really need all the high-maintenance bling. Guess I’m ‘old school’ and proud of it. 

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