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Beermountain started out as an online social place for a few chaps who used to meet in a field in France once a year back in the 1990s. They shared a love of BBQ, cold beer, loud cars and Raleigh "Chopper" bikes and each year planned their adventure at this website.

By time Bentley were back on top in 2001, it was clear times were changing. Race fans were crying out for an independent online place to share ideas and learn from the experience of others. They needed to know more of the reality of camping and surviving the adventure that is race week at the greatest motorsport event on the planet from a trustworthy source.

They wanted somewhere friendly where others shared the same outlook on life. Simply that Le Mans is more than just a race, and the more friends you have at Le Mans, the more fun you can have!

Beermountain opened its doors to Le Mans fans in 2005, and its forum became the planning and help hub for thousands of visitors to the race. Today it is the largest Le Mans 24 Hour Race community in the world. Members socialise online all year round, but in the run up to the race every year they help new members planning their very first trip. Oh, and a fe mad latecomers that seemed to have made no arrangements! The forum has a "knowledge bank" of hundreds of thousands of topics on every aspect of making the most of Le Mans. 

Our members organise their trip to Le Mans in a way that works best for them, but most like to learn from the experience of others and try new things. Wherever you camp and whatever you decide to do on your next visit to La Sarthe, there will be Beermountaineers all around you - why not join the fun in our forum today and meet some of them right now?

On final thing before you join. We like to keep the robots and spammers out of the forum, so you will need the following special number on the registration page - 1664. Easy to remember if you are a beer drinker!

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2016 Annual Members' Meeting

A date for your diary! We are pleased to announce that details of our Annual Members' Meeting (known to many simply as "The AGM") have now been confirmed. It will take place this year between 12.00 and 14.30 on Thursday 16th June. We will be holding our meeting once again at the fantastic First Tickets marquee on the Blue Nord campsite.

This is a new time slot for us, and we have chosen this to allow those that wish to watch the England vs Wales Euro 2016 game time to get back to their viewing location after the event. This starts at 15.00 CET. (Safe passage is possible from 14.00, at which time we will take the annual team photograph).

First Tickets have hosted this event for several years now, and we are grateful for their continued support of our event. Their marquee is a great place to enjoy a cold beer and meet old friends and new, whatever the weather and just a stone's throw from the track and the entrance to Maison Blanche. Because of the earlier timing we are sure that some of you will want some lunch, so that is currently being organised and details will be posted in our forum.

Once again we hope to raise lots of cash for our charity, Mission Motorsport, the forces motorsport charity. We expect to have some interesting and unique "money can't buy" prizes in our new look tombola and auction. We are grateful to all the members who are working hard behind the scenes to make this possible.

As usual our numbers are limited, so attendance is only possible for those registered and accepted on the guest list in our forum. We welcome new members, old members and especially those who are attending Le Mans from far away countries. Our international contingent continues to grow every year!

If you are interested in attending please visit the thread in our forum and follow the guidelines on how to sign up for this event. Not yet a member? Join our forum today and use our VIP code - 1664.

We look forward to seeing you there. Don't be shy, come and join in the fun!

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Everything you need to know about your campsite..

There are now less than 100 days to go to this year's race. To celebrate this our website underwent a bit of a transformation this week and we have updated all of our campsite pages with reviews, maps and resources to make sure you can find out all you need to know about your base.

We also provide every campsite with a rating based upon a number of criteria. Our new summary page shows our rating for each site.. but this is of course only our opinion! These range from one "bottle" to five "bottles". However some sites provide a very specific role that is likely to suit some and not others, making the rating tricky. For example you would probably not want to stay on PZ54 if you did not have a motorhome, and you would be unlikely to enjoy Mulsanne if you like being around the pits for the weekend.

To help with this our members have been helping by adding their reviews of recent experiences. Can you help us? We just need you to have a look at the campsite page for where you stayed last year and let us know if you think our review is accurate. You can find our new campsite landing page here.

Once you have had a look we would really appreciate it if you could pop into our forum to give us your feedback and a few words on your own experience - we have a thread specially for this. We believe that through more member reviews we can reduce any subjectivity and provide a broad, impartial and informed view of every campsite at Le Mans.

We hope your plans are going well for this year's race and that you like our new look website.

We look forward to hearing from you in our forum.

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Planning your trip

A vintage trip to the Le Mans 24 Hour Race is one that is fun and hassle free. Through many years of experience, our members know the "ins" and "outs" of almost any element of what we call your "cunning plan".

Once you know the dates and your numbers, its time to spring into planning action!

If you hover on the "PLANNING>>" tab in the navigation bar above, you can see we have a section on the key elements of what you need to know. If you are new to the challenge of organising a trip to Le Mans, we suggest you read each of these carefully before making any rash decisions.

Our Map Room shows you where everything is on site and allows you to compare camping locations and also pitch numbers on some of the marked out camping sites.

Our Campsites guide is the most comprehensive independent review of your Le Mans camping options on the web. This is vital if you are new to the Le Mans scene.

Getting the right/best Tickets can be straightforward, but its important you know the realities of availability before you book. What looks good might be, but there are a few pitfalls that many have learned by either being let down or possibly paying more than needed.

Packing an be a dark art, and there is no single list that fits every team, but we try to help with some suggestions. Of course we don't know if its just you in a Caterham, or if you have double decker bus!

Our Getting There page just gives you simple links to the ferry operators and the Chunnel chaps.

Our Filing Cabinet is a store of lots of linked information that might help you with certain aspects of your trip.

Anything not clear? No problem, just visit our forum. If your question hasn't already been answered your ask away in the "Help" section.If you can't find the answer to any question in each of these areas, please visit to our forum where you will find plenty more information and people who know the answer to almost everything!

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2016 Dates

Le Mans is so much more than just a 24 hour race! So much more in fact, that most of our members arrive several days before the race and join in the events being run by Beermountain, the ACO, and other clubs and organisations in the build up to the event every year.

You may have the 2016 race dates of 18th/19th June in your diary, but if you only arrive on the 17th June you will have missed much of the fun.

There really is something for everyone. Our recommendations of "not to miss" events include the Beermountain Annual Members' Meeting (held on the Thursday) and the Classic British Welcome at Saint Saturnin (held on the Friday). Trackside, we love day into night practice (held on Wednesday and Thursday), and also the free pit walk, held on the Friday. The more adventurous head into town on Friday afternoon for the "Grand Parade des Pilotes" in the old city.

Up and coming newer events include the Beermountain memorial service at the memorial of the RAF bomber crash site near Arnage (expected to be held on the Wednesday morning) and the Virage de Mulsanne Association event (held on the Friday).

Please visit our forum for up to date information regarding all of these and other events taking place around the race.

One final tip - try not to fill every minute of your day with activities (especially those that are trackside) - it is from those quiet moments of cold beer, BBQ and relaxation that one truly captures the spirit of Le Mans! You will be surprised how many invites you receive from fellow campers to join in their own local festivities..

We keep an up to date list of all the best events in our diary - check it out here.

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