A Guide to the 24 Hours of Le Mans

The 24 Hours of Le Mans has been whipping around the Circuit of Sarthe since 1923, making it the oldest endurance race in the world. As the name suggests, about 60 sports cars race around the circuit for 24 hours, and the car with the most distance covered wins. The race has significantly evolved over the last 100 years, yet somehow still retains its prestige. With speeds over 200 miles per hour, car and driver race through sun, rain, hail, fog and darkness, battling for the title and the bragging rights.
Colby had had this race on his bucket list for a while, and the 2024 race was held just after his 50th birthday, so I decided to surprise him with the experience. Because it was a surprise, I had to put in a ton of research without his input and it was shockingly hard to find much information online about the details I needed to know. Although the race is a huge deal in some circles, I found that not a lot of Americans had been- or even knew of the race when I asked around, so I wanted to put this article together to hopefully help a future face fan.

TICKETS
Lets start with the tickets. The race is held near the summer solstice in June because of the short nights and long days. Tickets go on sale around the fall of the year prior. They usually sell tickets for the weekend or for the whole week. Honestly, you’re taking the time to travel all the way to France, you should do the whole week ticket. Even if you only go to race activities for 4 or 5 of the days, its worth it. Since it was his birthday and I wanted to go all-out, I decided I wanted to try to purchase a full-week ticket with grandstand seats. (Aside: Do you need a seat? That is personal preference and depends upon what your priorities are. You don’t NEED a seat in the grandstands to attend the race, you just need a general admission ticket. If you really want a good spot for the start and finish, you will want a grandstand seat, because its totally jammed to stand and watch those moments. If you don’t plan to leave the race to sleep and you want a designated spot to sit and nap or rest, you “kind of” need a seat. If its really hot and sunny or pouring rain (more on that later) its nice to have a seat because they are covered. Now, there are several really awesome places to watch the race from (more on that later), and there is a huge area “the Village” with food and vendors to walk around, and other than the start and finish there are dozens of spots to stand and watch the race in the main entrance hub there, so a general admission ticket is fine in that case. You’re going to do a lot of walking regardless.) Anyways, back to the tickets… So I figured out that if I signed up for an ACO membership for about $100, I could get into the presale tickets, which seemed the best option for obtaining the limited grandstand seat plus a full week ticket to the race and all of the pre-race days. Armed with my membership and computer, I woke up at 2am PST and waited with finger poised to click the button the second ticket sales opened. Even after all that, I was “in line” behind thousands of other purchasers and had to wait for over an hour to get out of the queue. And then they only gave you 15 minutes to choose tickets and check out! I was pretty concerned about which grandstand to look at for tickets but now that I have been there I can attest it doesn’t really make much of a difference. At that point I hit a planning snag because I was only able to purchase 2 grandstand seats at a time and I needed 4. I knew they would surely be sold out by the time I purchased the first 2 and then went back through the queue so I ended up with just the 2 full week grandstand tickets for myself and Colby and 2 full week general admission tickets for the kids. Honestly it ended up being just fine because we rotated who was sitting in the seats and moved around a lot- aside from the moments of start and finish. My kids got the same great experience as we did from their GA tickets and they were a fraction of the cost without the seats, so pick what works for you. I personally liked having an assigned space and great view of the start and finish without people spilling their beer on me.

ACCOMODATIONS
Okay, so you have your tickets, now what? Obviously you need flights to France, and either a rental car (highly recommended) or train tickets to Le Mans. Once you get to Le Mans there is pretty decent public transportation- a tram and busses to most of the places you would want to see, so if you don’t have a car, its not a dealbreaker. Now you need accommodations. Option 1: Camping. You can purchase camping with your tickets for tent or car camping, which means you can rest anytime you want and you get to stay right in the action all week. Many people rent out camping gear or RV’s and will set it up for you if you don’t have the gear or are traveling from far away. Option 2: Hotel/Rental house. There are several hotels in the city center of Le Mans which is very convenient and cute and easy. There are tons of great bars and restaurants, night life and coffee shops, so that can be convenient. If you want to stay in a house such as airbnb, I recommend finding something in Le Mans that is walking distance to the public transportation stops or in the town of Arnage or even Mulsanne. Any of these have easy access to either the main paddocks or they are close to popular places to see the race. We opted for a house in Le Mans because we had a car so we could get around easily and I am too old to enjoy the shit show and noise of a camping spot. If I was a boy with a group of boys I think camping would have really given the FULL experience.
PREP
Lets get into the race prep. Before I experienced Le Mans, I thought 24 hours passed pretty quickly. And the older I get the quicker the days seem to go! However, when you’re watching that length of an event, enjoyable as it may be, its like a being held in a limbo. And time slows down in limbo. So, prepare for that 24 hours to feel like several days, I am not kidding. Part of the reason it seems so long is that there are about a dozen great spots to watch the race beyond the paddock (more to come) and it takes like 1-2 HOURS to move locations because you have to take a crowded shuttle bus or car to most of them, there’s traffic, road closures, blah blah. But you want to go to the spots because you want to see cool racing at the hairpin turn, or you want to catch an off, or you want to see the cars navigate a chicane. So it takes a lot of walking and patience to get from place to place. Aside from the other locations, you’ll want to see the pits/paddocks/village, you’ll want to shop, you’ll want to see the cars on display. More walking. You will get hungry so you’ll need to find food, several times, and likely an alcoholic beverage, and imagine how many times one can eat and drink whist awake for most of 24 hours. Also, and the most important reason the day drags on- you have weather. Likely you’ll get some sun, even more likely you’ll get rain. Or you are lucky like us and you get freezing sideways rain during the dark hours of the cold night. How to prepare for this? You need supplies. A backpack with the right clothes- lots of layers and gloves. Lots of snacks and water. An umbrella, a poncho wouldn’t hurt, a blanket. Good walking shoes, a sun hat, sunglasses, sunscreen. You have to be prepared for every season to happen in that 24 hours because that’s how it is in France in June. I actually had to stop and buy not one, but two heavy jackets in Le Mans because I needed that many layers in addition to what I already had brought on the trip. It was THAT cold. And then I got a sunburn during the daylight hours. Real good times.
But before I get further down that rabbit hole, if you take nothing else away from this post, you need to purchase headphones with an AM/FM radio. Firstly, its really hard to hear the commentary because its such a big track. And second, its in French. So unless you have supersonic hearing and you speak French, you’ll need your own set of ears so you can tune into the Le Mans Radio. You’ll really miss out if you don’t listen to these guys, they are so knowledgeable and make it fun. Plus the headphones will double as ear protection. 

RACE WEEK
Each year is a little different, but you can plan on several practice or qualifying days of racing, which is fabulous because it gives you less crowded times to scope out where you want to watch the race from on the big day. It gives you time to really immerse in the whole Le Mans culture, which is actually very cool. It also gives you time to go to the Le Mans museum, which cannot be missed, without sacrificing those most important 24 hours. The city center is decked out in regalia, even the stunning Cathedral takes part in the fun.Things start really ramping up on Thursday with the Hyperpole, a 20 minute battle for LMGT3 and LMP2 cars and the Road to Le Mans races for LMP3 and GT3 cars trying to move up to play with the big boys. Friday brings a track walk, and its unique to be able to put the race in that perspective. In addition, there is a drivers parade through Le Mans city center on Friday which is so long and drawn out and chaotic and packed and is a MUST attend. There are concerts and events going on in the Villages and in the town, and the festival atmosphere is in full force- complete with the crazy outfits and excited fans.
On Saturday, you’ll want to be inside the Main Entrance or Village or in your seat for the Official Departure Ceremony. Its patriotic, loud, exciting, and everything the start of this experience should be. The race for us began promptly at 4pm, and the first few laps were full of anticipation and excitement! After a while we left our seats to go check out some other spots on the 13 mile course. Julie was not feeling well so I planned to take her home and then meet up with the group later at one of the other locations. We got all the way back to the house and realized- Colby had the house keys. How sad. The options were to take the tram and bus approx 1.5 hours to Mulsanne corner where Colby had ended up- or get a Bolt. We chose the latter. In about 20 minutes we had driven down to Mulsanne corner, then another 30 minutes back to the house, then I turned around and went back to the circuit. It just seemed like getting anywhere took two days. Thank heavens I bought those two heavy mens jackets because as soon as we got back to the track it started raining- again. Lily and I decided it was best for us if we wasted time with champagne and a cheese board (to the tune of $70 EURO!) and then later met up with Colby and Max in the seats. They said they really enjoyed stopping at the other locations around the track and checking out all the viewpoints, of which I only saw Mulsanne Corner, and it was pretty cool. There was so much going on late into the night including fireworks and concerts, people were just having a fabulous time. Lily and I said we would sit in our seats (in the rain) and watch the race for a while and we had planned to be pretty tough… but around midnight we were cold and wet, it was dark, and we decided we actually weren’t that tough… so we went home to get some sleep. Colby and Max came home around 3am to get a little sleep and go back in the morning for more racing. Now remember, all that diversion, and the race was not even halfway over yet! In the morning it took me a while to get Colby awake and moving. He’s just not cut out for this kind of exhaustion! We did find some yummy pastries and coffee to fuel up and then we felt pretty dang great. However, when we got back to the track there was still SEVERAL HOURS of racing left. We had done it all- stopped to see the race from every interesting spot, shopped at every vendor, bought all the good food, it felt we had been there a year! We did our last laps through the fan zones and shops, checked out some more race viewpoints, then found our seats to watch the last two hours of a super close race. In the rain. Again. Ferrari won the race, and to our great surprise the track was opened to the public to go watch the trophy ceremony. Walking down the track after the finish was like a culmination of the saga, and of course it was fun to see the drivers accept their trophies! This is a MUST do! And just like that, race week was over.

WHERE TO WATCH
The Start/Finish Straight, obviously best at the start and finish of the race but its actually pretty impressive anytime, especially from the comfort of a seat. Dunlop Bridge, which is in the same area and makes for cool photographs. Its near a screen so you can see what’s happening everywhere else on the course. The Esses, which are the curves coming into the Dunlop area, with great viewing on either side of the course. You can access these three spots from the Main Entrance or the Village.
Muslanne Corner, the view of the cars is great because they slow down to make the hairpin so you can really see them up close. There is also a screen to watch from which is nice in case something exciting happens somewhere else on the course. Indianapolis, which is right near Arnage, another nice turn and good viewing area. These two spots are accessed by bus or car and not attached to the Main Entrance/Village/Paddocks.
Some other spots I couldn’t be bothered to trek to but I heard were worth the visit: Ford Chicane, Tetre Rouge, Mulsanne Straight (if you can get there), and Maison Blanc.
Sunrise and sunset are really nice if its not pouring sideways rain, but then again if it is pouring you might get to see an off, which is exciting.
WRAP UP
We have been to races all over the world, including the Isle of Man TT, Nascar, Supercross, Motocross and more. The 24 Hours of Le Mans is unlike anything else. Its a festival, a showcase, a family event, a tradition and a high performance automobile endurance extravaganza. So go, experience all the things and soak it in because its truly a unique event.
A final note, in the year leading up to our trip I read through the following website several times and it made my experience everything good that it was. I will be forever grateful for the insight and humor on these pages. Give them a look for your planning as well: https://www.le-mans-guide.co.uk/