Le Mans Trip

In preparation for the le mans trip, I ordered a couple of intercom parts, most importantly the new headsets, i was convinced it was a fault with the one I had, so I ordered a new in-helmet set, and two 'training' headsets which are basically a set of ear defenders with a microphone and speaker attached.

The star com is a great intercom capable of two way driver/passenger communication, combined with car to car radio communication, hookup for an audio device (in my case an ipod) and a phone kit (amongst a bunch of other features.)

Based on the background noise, the star com will increase or reduce the volume of the comms system to compensate, then when one person speaks it will mute the radio. There is an additional Push-To-Talk switch mounted on the gearstick to activate the radio.

The problem is, whilst VOX works fine for the passenger, they talk music cuts out, it doesn't work for the driver, it seems that either the mic setting on the passenger side is too high, or the driver too low, the result is that VOX goes a bit crazy. On the trip this wasn't a problem, we simply talked over the music when required, but its a little frustrating at times.

The sound quality however is fantastic, driving with no windscreen, and just the open headsets at 85mph was crystal clear, we could talk normally with each other, although as you can't hear yourself the result was we were needlessly raising our voices.

I'll have a chat with star-com about the problem with VOX as I expect to use the same system in the fury.

I had a cracking few days driving as part of the trip to Le Mans, I left the thursday morning in very wet weather, scared the life out myself when I aquaplaned whilst overtaking a truck on the motor-way, and had a very very slow, and very very miserable trip down to Bauvais, fortunately it really brightened up, and the rest of the drive down was great fun. Paul did try to kill us by pulling out in front of a truck when we did our first driver change, but other than that things went pretty well.

The starter motor stuck at a petrol station en-route, it has done it once more since then in Germany, and it seems to be only when the engine is hot, and has been stood for a few minutes. The only other issue was the front left hub nut coming a little loose this was evident when braking as after a tight right bend, the brake pedal would have a bit more travel, this was easily nipped up with some added thread-lock for good measure.

The car was driving remarkably well, and most of the teething trouble seems to be gone now, I'm a lot more confident in the car. On the way back we stopped off in a very wet Versailles, there were roadworks and I wasn't quite sure were to go, and essentially drove up the main driveway, realizing my mistake (after pausing for a quick photo opportunity) i squeezed through a gap in the pavement into the real car park. It wasnt until we were done when we noticed that we had ended up in a car park you can only exit if you have a ticket, so we sneaked out the way we came in and despite a few confused workmen, nobody seemed to notice.

I left Paul with Kyle and Charlotte and hot footed it home, thankfully it brightened up in belgium and I was able to make some progress, it had been painfully slow moving on the way so far.

The car got a lot of attention both on the route, and at le mans itself, sometimes it can be a little overwhelming but for the most part its great fun and very good natured. I think we will make the return trip next year, or perhaps to the classic event instead.