Circuit des Remparts Angouleme

This weekend sees our local city of Angouleme celebrating it's annual Circuit des Remparts event. Tomorrow the streets become a race track for a wide variety of classic cars, but there was plenty of action to see today too. Many of the cars had spent the day touring the Charente department on a rally before returning to Angouleme where we were waiting to cheer them in and take their photo.

I am a little ashamed to admit, but this is the first time in nine years that we have managed to make a visit, which for a couple of petrol heads who own and love a Mini Cooper is almost unforgivable. However, September is normally Ade's busiest month work-wise, so it is not unusual for him to be away and other years we have had visitors and my birthday celebrations have got in the way. This year, although we can't make the race tomorrow, we did at least get to soak up the atmosphere today and had a great time (in petrol head heaven). 

We parked about 20 km outside of the city, so we could also get a decent bike ride in, and cycled through the vineyards before climbing up the steep hill into town. The sun was shining, the engines were revving and all was well with our world. Our weekends in the 1990's were usually spent at Mini events and track days and the sounds and smells we experienced today brought back many happy memories. There is nothing quite like the smells of leather and polish from an old car's interior or the Castrol R oil and high octane fuel. We did feel quite guilty that Gizmo our Mini Cooper missed out on all the action. Next year we may, at last, get to the ramparts race, I hope.

Here are just some of our photos from today.

Circuit des Remparts Angouleme

We love the Mini