Freeman Vacations In France By Racing Karts at Le Mans
Throughout the nation, many fans of racing take vacations from their normal everyday life. They pack up their family and head to a racing event somewhere across the country, enjoying every minute of the on track action. For race car drivers, their vacations are usually a short stint to some place away from the noise and chaos that occurs at a racing facility.
For John Freeman, a break in his racing season in the NASCAR Busch East Series allowed him to take a weekend vacation. Freeman decided to go out of country on his vacation to France, but it wasn’t to get away from racing. Joining Team USA, Freeman got to participate in the “24 Hours of Le Mans” Karting event at the world famous Le Mans road course, marking the first time he has seen and raced at the facility.
“It was great,” said Freeman. “There is so much history at Le Mans. When you talk about the history in all of auto racing you talk about Daytona, Indianapolis and Le Mans. They are the three biggest homes for auto racing in the world. I have been to both Daytona and Indianapolis, but now I have been to Le Mans and completed the voyage to all these great facilities.”
Before taking to the track, Freeman took a tour of the facility, soaking in the history of auto racing along the way.
“I got to see the track and the museum,” said Freeman. “I got to see the cars that date back to the 1920s that raced on this track. It was just amazing to see the evolution of racing with what they had there. Then to actually get to race on a portion of the track for 24 hours was an absolute blast.”
Heading into the race, Freeman’s team looked to be the ones to beat out of 40 cars. Along with a famous name on the team, they took a huge lead early and were leaving the field at the one-quarter mark.
“My good buddy Jerry Nadeau was with us on our team,” explained Freeman. “We had a great time out there. We had a pretty good run going and were a lap ahead of the field six hours into the race. We thought we had a for sure victory if we just cruised.
“Then our hub fell off the axle and we had a motor failure about hour seven. We went about 17 or 18 laps down changing the motor. We fell all the way back to about 35th, but we got back out on the track and made most of our laps up and finished in the top 10.
“It wasn’t what we went to do. We wanted to put both Team Americas on the podium. Team USA 2 did win the class and we were sad we weren’t up there joining them, but all in all we had one of the fastest cars out there and we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.”
Freeman, who hasn’t had an extensive background in Karting, learned a lot about the cars, which he will continue to drive periodically when his schedule allows.
“I have really not done a lot of kart racing in my life, but I love it, especially racing with who I did. It is a great group of guys. In the future I am planning on racing a six-hour solo Karting event, which if I finish I will be the first person to finish a six-hour solo event. Also in January I will be running a two-man 24 hour event at Moroso Motorsports Park (FL).”
While the finish wasn’t exactly what he wanted in his first trip to Le Mans, Freeman reflected on the weekend, knowing he has raced on the same asphalt as other veteran drivers in the sport of racing.
“After coming back from Le Mans I went to race at a place like Nashville. It is cool to look at their wall and see some of the names of the best NASCAR drivers who have raced there in the past. At Le Mans I was looking at a wall with the names of some of the greatest road racers in all of history. To be a part of history is a great thing. You feel like you are living in the moment when you are there.
“It is probably one of the best vacations of my life, and I didn’t do much relaxing.”
John Freeman racing on the famous Le Mans track.
The cars in the museum were impressive.
Dan Burke, Jerry Nadeau and John Freeman were all smiles, knowing they were at a historic facility to race.
