Fan meeting with Leh Keen by Ameline

Lehman Keen was not racing for Dempsey Racing at the Le Mans, however he is one of the team’s racers, we wanted to include this extraordinary fan meeting with the Dempsey Racing fans too! 2010 Le Mans

How to make look us crazy … in ONE lesson !

Tuesday… We arrived at the track around 1.30pm… first wave of émotions and memories when we saw the entry. One year we expect to come back here. We take our time to lunch at the museum snack, then we went in the track. I saw myself a year ago, doing exactly the same way.  We went for a walk on the circuit, to locate the paddock of Leh. And 30 minutes before the autograph session, we went in front of the pitwalk’s entrance. The wait was so long, we had only one objective : LEH !

That’s it ! The entrance is open to the public ! Most of the people went to Peugeot or Audi, we continued our way and finally arrived in front of the Ferrari #89′ stand. The car is at a few meters, beautiful. Team members put the table and chairs for the autographs. We saw Leh next to the car but the other pilots weren’t here yet.

So I decided to go at another stand to see Jean Alesi, who raced with Ferrari #95, I got my autograph and I saw my friend make me sign and told me “He is here !”. I hurried to join her.

And then I saw Allan Simonsen, Dominik Farnbacher and Leh all sitted at the table. The excitement moved up a rung. We took pictures we wanted to sign out of our bag and we moved closer to the table.

Big smile to the racers, then we move quickly to Leh we greet. We put down the six photos of him and the mazda #41 on the table. He is astonished to see that. We could only laugh at the situation. My friend gave him the wallet which contained the ticket for the race, and told him “It’s for the Dempsey Challenge”. And he replied “Oh, Dempsey Challenge, I saw on Facebook”. Unfortunately my brain was very upset and I didn’t all understand. I don’t know if he talked about the invitation I sent him about my Mazda RX-8 #40 to win for my Dempsey Challenge fundraising. I wasn’t able to ask him. My English was gone from my brain.

Well… He added that it was bad Patrick wasn’t here this year. At the same time he signed all the photos. And then he done I asked him for taking a picture. He got up and… OH MY GOD he is tall !! I felt so tiny. Picture taken he sat down again and I wished you the best of luck for the race.

We decided to stay a little in front of the stand and we continued to take pictures of the drivers during a few persons came to have autographs. Leh raised a few times his head and smiled at us. It started to rain and they decided to push back the table for being protected of the rain.

I decided to let my friend there and I went autograph hunting. I began by the team “Luc Alphand Adventure”, then “Oreca Matmut” with Olivier PANIS. And I went to the three”Peugeot” teams. Unfortunately cause of the rain, Sebastien BOURDAIS stopped to sign poster and went inside his stand. In addition to this with the rain I took my shower. Thank God I had already took my picture with Leh !

I went back to the Leh’ stand but the table wasn’t here anymore. With the rain we can go at the edge of the garage. We were at a few centimeters of the car. We took a lot of pictures. My friend saw Leh back in the garage talking with people. She took photos of him.  Technicians took the car for another scrutineering. Not sure.

I went back to the Sebastien Bourdais garage. There were a lot of people but I succeeded to approach the table and I got a few autographs. I returned (again !) at the Leh’s pit. The car was back and I saw Leh with his helmet. Just having the time to take one or two photos before he removed it.

During fifteen minutes we stayed here and took a lot of pictures of everything. Dominik Farnbacher was talking with a technician and I told to my friend to take picture of him he is a driver. I did not need to tell her twice. A few times he looked at us.

I think everyone in the team took us for crazy girls ! We just never stopped to take photos. I honestly don’t know if they had already saw that especially Leh. Usually at Rolex race I think there are mainly for Patrick when he is there. But this time we were there just to see HIM.

It looked like rain again. Leh was gone. We decided to go home.

First hours at Le Mans : Wonderful. Memorable.

Ameline runs a blog with her followings of Dempsey Racing at http://dempsey-racing.skyrock.com/