Vuillafans Echevannes: Facing your Fear

Vuillafans has to be one of my favourite rounds in the whole French Championship, the setting alone is just beautiful with the Loue River running right through the heart of the village, cars & teams spread outwards from the centre and the course itself going from just past the church to wind it’s way up in the mountain towards Echevannes. I’ll never forget the first time I came here in 2015, winding my way down the valley with the low evening sun flashing through the trees, I’d never seen a hillclimb like it…

Anyone who follows my blog will be familiar with last year’s race, and why 2017 meant a difficult return to the hill so close to my heart.

Nonetheless, I knew why that happened and I’d learnt a simple but crucial lesson (when to select a clear visor over tinted), so in theory there was nothing to be afraid of. Shortly after forming this rational in my mind, I took a quick look at the forecast and instantly revoked the statement – heavy, heavy rain with thunder & lightening. If you think I’m being melodramatic then forgive me for not mentioning another element particular Vuillafans, which is the intense heat that causes apocalyptic storms, the type you do not want to race a car in.

So with memories of Mont-Dore springing to mind, I crammed a jacket into my luggage and dropped my car off with Swift Airport Parking as per usual (valet parking is my new favourite thing!). I was really looking forward to staying on the river this year, having made friends with a lady who lives in the village the past few years she’d rented me her house (she was away ) so I could wake up to the sound of running water and eat breakfast watching swifts & swallows (I don’t know the difference) dive down onto the water.

As luck had it, the weather turned out to be hot & sunny on Friday, I arrived at 1:30 am after my flight to Geneva was delayed and had a good lie in. Once again it’s the first time I’ve had a hire car to practice the hill in, so I made full use of it before taking a swim in the river that afternoon. Saturday was looking pretty good too, it was Sunday that was going to a challenge…

Free practice went well, I had some butterflies for sure and I was keener than ever to just get a good steady run up the hill. The surface here has a lot of bumps, cambers and bad surfacing, meaning that you’re sometimes not using the instinctive part of the line. One thing that really stood out was how planted the Norma feels compared to the FR which would try to wander over the bumps, whereas the Norma just feels rock solid. On the second practice I posted a 2:10:369 to go 4 seconds quicker than my old PB without really trying too hard, before setting a 2:07:363 on the final run of the day to put me 8th in class, not a bad start.

That afternoon pretty much the whole team piled into the Loue for a swim, it was approaching 40 degrees and late that evening the temperature was still high. We all knew storms were coming though…

I’ve never had three runs here, and it looked like Sunday morning would be the only dry run of the day so the pressure was on. Last year I scrapped the first run with a half spin, ramping up stakes for the final climb, I was absolutely on it but sadly it wasn’t to be… so you can imagine that I was working hard to keep a level head. I went for it, and took off another second to post a 2:06.285, but I was hoping for more and couldn’t help but feel like I could/should have gone  a good second or two quicker. Shortly after reaching the top the rain came, meaning that all the fastest drivers recorded crazy times and the whole order was turned upside down.

Run no.2 was on full wets as the track was soaking, I went ok but there was no point risking an off. By the time we were back down the hill again it was still early afternoon, so a third run was a certainty, and the sun was out in full force drying up out the tarmac. I couldn’t believe my luck, and before long we were getting ready once more, but sure enough dark clouds were gathering on the horizon and we knew more rain was coming…

Sat waiting at pre-grill I felt the spot land on my visor, followed by another, and another. It was light but clearly just the beginning, in the five or so minutes it took for me to reach the start line it started to come down harder… I reasoned that the track was hot enough for the initial shower to make no difference to the level of grip, but I realised that it was only a matter of minutes before the this balance shifted. I didn’t waste a second as the light went green, momentarily loosing the revs, I can’t remember the last time I felt this fired up – all memories of this moment last year were gone and I just drove as hard as I could!

I had no idea how hard it was actually raining, but I could see the tarmac was getting darker and felt the car sliding more at the hairpins, even so I barely backed off at all. A time of 2:07:418 wasn’t bad at all, in fact I was second fastest in Serie A on that run…!

Sure I hadn’t improved my position, but I knew once and for all that I’d faced my demons and beaten them, psychologically it was a victory.

I was over the moon, 7th place wasn’t bad at all, and more’s the point I’d made peace with Vuillafans and fallen in love with this beautiful race all over again.