24 hrs of Le Mans

[ELVA164]

What's it like in the bridge when cars drive under you?

I've never been to Le Mans of course, but I've been on the bridge at Road America when a grid of '70s F1 cars went under. I thought my head was going to explode.

[LateFan]

What's it like in the bridge when cars drive under you?

[bumada]

^^^ Sweet! Nice shots! Nice spots!

So lucky to be able to be there.

It's definitely something you have to do once. We got an airbnb in a town like 30 minutes away from the track. Legit breakfast in the morning, pool outside, short walk to some restaurants and bars. Parking was actually really easy and everyone brings their super cars as well.

My brother just so happened to be graduating from his school one day before the race. So how could you even pass up that opportunity?

[ELVA164]

Nice!

[LateFan]

^^^ Sweet! Nice shots! Nice spots!

So lucky to be able to be there.

[bumada]

Some Pre-Race cars




Delta Wing. I had a hard time getting side shots because the fence is so high and the lens wanted to focus on the fence.


View from the grand stands looking through the Dunlop curve.










Coming down through the Dunlop Bridge. Pretty cool to go inside of it.


Patrick Dempsey's car. I'm not sure if he was driving at the time, but I told my mom he was so she'd leave me alone about it.


More Dunlop


Came back at 4am. I don't own a fast enough lens to capture sweet night pics so no cars during the night. Also, the amount of people just passed out drunk was incredible. It was probably in the low 40s and people just sprawled out in the grass (which also doubled as everyone's bathroom). People just don't care about where they piss there. Saw way too many dicks.


Sun's coming up.




My favorite picture.


Can you guess where my favorite spot was?


Yes! The Dunlop Bridge


I have more but these are the best and it gets rather repetitive. For those that don't know, you can walk from the Ford chicanes by the ferris wheel, all the way until the tetre rouge which is the final turn before the Mulsanne straight.

[bumada]

Ok. I'm about to photo dump from when I went to Le Mans 2 years ago. I'm no photographer but I tried my best to take good pictures. Also, this laptop that has all my pictures on it runs like shit so let's hope for the best for these upload speeds.

[ELVA164]

Something fun I learned about it by building an accurate model - the flat 6 is mounted as low as possible of course, but the tail end of the engine-tranny assembly is tipped up quite a bit, to get it out of the way of the ground effect tunnels rising towards the back. It's a pretty ingenious design - that's Norbert Singer. I also read it has way way more downforce than the 917, at a fraction of the drag.

shit...do I have to? Some WD-40 and put them in a big zip-lock?

That is pretty clever. I'm not surprised how much better than the 917 it is; that design was much less informed and honestly cobbled together at times.

Yes, those bits make a difference in value for sure if they're original to the car.

[LateFan]

Night at Le Mans is cool....

Yellow lights - GT cars, white lights - prototypes


One dot means first in class..


Three dots third..

[LateFan]

Fun fact about the 962: the 956 wasn't changed for safety, at least not mainly. IMSA saw its domination in Europe and outlawed it due to the position of the driver's feet.

Something fun I learned about it by building an accurate model - the flat 6 is mounted as low as possible of course, but the tail end of the engine-tranny assembly is tipped up quite a bit, to get it out of the way of the ground effect tunnels rising towards the back. It's a pretty ingenious design - that's Norbert Singer. I also read it has way way more downforce than the 917, at a fraction of the drag.

Hold onto the original pieces though!

shit...do I have to? Some WD-40 and put them in a big zip-lock?

[ELVA164]

I don't see anybody putting any belts on.

Cool!

And that was well before belts were en vogue. The popular idea then was it was safer to be thrown away from the car than caught up in it when it crashed.
.....Interesting.

Funny! My Alfa has Dunlop brakes and they're SHIT! I'm getting rid of them! Finicky, won't stay in adjustment, slow reaction, and rear pads are $100. By '68 - 69, they all came with Ate brakes, so you just change calipers and swap a later rear axle assembly, and get a LS rear end as a bonus. I'm grinding off grime and old paint as we speak!

It's all relative! Interestingly, the very first Dunlop brakes on the Jaguars (older than yours) didn't even have removable pads! You had to remove the caliper from the rotor and pull them out of the little reliefs made for them. Someone at Dunlop must have realized how stupid that was and along came the slide-out pads.

But yeah, the Ate stuff is way better. Hold onto the original pieces though!

[LateFan]

In a similar vein regarding Dunlop disc brakes...

Funny! My Alfa has Dunlop brakes and they're SHIT! I'm getting rid of them! Finicky, won't stay in adjustment, slow reaction, and rear pads are $100. By '68 - 69, they all came with Ate brakes, so you just change calipers and swap a later rear axle assembly, and get a LS rear end as a bonus. I'm grinding off grime and old paint as we speak!

[LateFan]

You want corny, here's another one. All very proper BBC flag waving.

But I stuck with it, and there is fantastic color footage of so many great cars - Ferrari, Jag, Allard, Cunningham, Alfa Romeo, Aston Martin...and a bunch of famous drivers. Some good Cunningham footage.



I think it's interesting that in the mid-50s, no one mentions the little Porsche 356s, which are just cleaning up in GT with tiny 1500 engines. But there's a bunch of them in this footage. Little upstart company!

I don't see anybody putting any belts on.

[ELVA164]

Jeez, you posted a lot in the interim! Fun fact about the 962: the 956 wasn't changed for safety, at least not mainly. IMSA saw its domination in Europe and outlawed it due to the position of the driver's feet. They hoped this would dissuade Porsche from bringing a car to America, but it only ended up creating an even better version of an already great car.

[ELVA164]

Yeah, hopefully it will always be the worst motorsport-related incident. In a similar vein regarding Dunlop disc brakes, Jaguar MkII sedans had a plate on the rear which warned other drivers of its braking performance.