Our journey began at Bellefille, an incredibly beautiful chateau about 20 clicks west of Le Mans. Bellefille, literally, “beautiful girl,” for the proprietress of the chateau sometime in the 13th Century, was our home during the week of the 24-Hours of Le Mans.
While it was difficult to leave the idyllic setting of Bellefille, the task at hand was certainly not an unpleasant one: to drive a brilliant yellow C5 Corvette from Le Mans North and West to Cherbourg, about an eight-hour journey, I was told, allowing time to stop at the World War II beaches at Normandy. At Cherbourg, we were to board a hovercraft to cross the Channel to England for Lord March’s annual Goodwood Festival of Speed.
