24 hrs of Le Mans

[bumada]

so knowing what the race is all about, the experience etc., would you still go after looking backwards with 20/20 hindsight.
i ask because the race is on my list and it's working its way to the top of the list.

I'd definitely do it again. It's also more than just the race. Staying in one of the neighboring towns and hitting up their little watering holes and restaurants was pretty awesome too.

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[ELVA164]

Chris Amon has died at 73.

:( That's young, was he sick?

[LateFan]

Yes, I read that he had been sick for a while.

[LateFan]

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[LateFan]

[ELVA164]

What a weird noise...Pretty quick though!

[LateFan]

It's Hyperspace!

[ELVA164]

Ludicrous speed!

[LateFan]

Stop this thing!!!!!!

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[LateFan]

1967

Night before Le Mans
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(Different car here, but Gurney / Foyt / Phil Remington...wait, that's Daytona)
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Daytona grandstands again - Gurney / Remington / Foyt
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[ELVA164]

Dan Gurney is the man.

[LateFan]

France, June of 1951. A garage on the Rue du 8 Mai in Teloché, a village some four miles south of Le Mans. On the eve of the nineteenth 24 Hours of Le Mans race, mechanics are working feverishly on two silver Porsches with starting numbers 46 and 47. The atmosphere is tense. The lead-up to the race has been anything but smooth—three of the four 356 SL cars prepared in Zuffenhausen did not survive the test-drives. The night before the race, the mechanics are still trying everything they can think of on number 47, but to no avail. Porsche enters only one car in the contest.

The automotive world is stunned to hear that Porsche will race in Le Mans. The carmaker, founded in 1948, is the first (and only) German brand to enter this most venerable of French endurance races in the aftermath of World War II. The announcement is not only motorsports news but also a political statement. Just a few years after the war, German carmakers are not exactly welcome in France. True, at last year’s motor show in Paris, Charles Faroux—the director of the race in Le Mans—expressly called for Porsche to participate, but his compatriots still harbor a good deal of resentment toward Germans, stemming from the occupation. The decisive impetus for Porsche to take part finally comes in the form of Auguste Veuillet, the future exclusive importer for Porsche in France. He wants to drive in the race himself, and he also plans to handle local organizational matters for Porsche with motorsports director Paul von Guilleaume.



A small auto shop a few miles from the circuit has been the home of the Porsche team in Le Mans for more than thirty years. It is here, in the village of Teloché, where preparations are made to win the famous endurance race.

[LateFan]

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Hans Herrmann in the left front sitting on #23, Norbert Singer at the far right in black - he engineered most of these cars.

[LateFan]

I may have this wrong, but aren't the three on the right (#2, 1, 5) the '66 "tie" winners, Red #1 427 is Dan Gurney / AJ Foyt '67, and #6 is the famous car that won both '68 and '69?

I don't know about yellow #1 and #2, I don't know about Gulf blue #40 (those front "winglets" were a much later idea, weren't they?), and I don't know about light blue #1.

How cool is it to have them all in one place like that?

[ELVA164]

#40 looks like a Mirage, yellow #1 and #2 are two of the three other original MkIVs, and of course the white with black in the rear is the first MkI which sucked. That's all I know, though.