My dream finally came true: I met Jacky Ickx and shared with him some hours which will remain forever unforgettable, engraved in my memory. You will understand that, by respect of the private life of Mr. Ickx and the confidence he made on me, what follows is only a short summary of this meeting.

November 12th, 2002, the phone rings and when I answer, a well-known voice said: “Jacky Ickx“. After greeting him, he continues: “are you free on November 18th, 2002 because I would like to meet you at home and to invite you for a lunch?“. Following my affirmative answer, he explained me how to get there. I had the cut breath of it ! Me? Guest of Jacky Ickx ? I should be dreaming.
Useless to say that during the days which followed this phone call, the tension went up until reaching its paroxysm.

Therefore, Monday 18 November 2002, I started and during all the way to Jacky’s home, I was at the same time nervous and excited, even stressed.
I arrived, at the agreed hour, in front of the gate of an old farm very nicely restored and rang the bell. Ralf, Jacky’s dog, looked at me calmly.
From the main building, I saw Jacky coming out and asking “You are Mister?“. When I declined my identity, I saw to appear this smile, known so well, on his lips and he opened the gate. He held my hand cordially and said how much happy he was to meet me. He could not imagine how great was my happiness!

Jacky invited me in and a friendly conversation went on. First of all, I received all his congratulations for the realization of this site which he finds “fantastic and admirable”. I told him that without the assistance of the many visitors, this site would not have evolved to what it is currently. Then I gave him greetings that certain visitors of the site and friends of Jacky had asked me to transmit to him. He did not think that he still had thousands of fans in the whole world. He was very surprised to learn that more than 11.000 visitors had attended this site in six months. He told me that he does not use a computer.

Later, he invited me to have lunch in a small restaurant which he enjoys. There, the conversation continued, always so friendly and pleasant. I asked him some questions in order to clarify certain points but I must admit that in the emotion of the moment, I forgot to ask several questions which I had prepared.

Back to his home, he offered me a replica at the scale 1:2, of his helmet. I had tears in the eyes because of the emotion. He agreed to dedicate a photo made by my friend Popol and a reproduction of a painting made by Benoit Deliege. He pointed out me that his signature on the main page of this site was not any more topicality and he signed a white sheet (see main page). He also made a funny signature that he uses sometimes when he writes to his friends. The signature of Rain Master.

Before I left, he asked me to send him a fax containing the list of the informations that I needed for the website. He will be pleased to help this site. He then accompanied me to my car and said that we would remain in touch. We said goodbye and when I moved away, he continued to wave at me as a sign of goodbye.

On my way home, it was hard to realize what had been just carried out, the dream of an unconditional fan of Jacky Ickx, dream hoped during almost forty years. Jacky is just like other people had described him. Friendly, joker, cordial, cheerful, very simple… in short, a great man with a wide open heart. Thank you Mr Jacky Ickx. You made my day.