- CELEBRATION TIME! €38,000 ($53,215.38, give or take) to enter; €40,000 ($56,016.19, give or take) to win. That's a profit of €2,000 ($2,800.81, give or take) for the overall-winning No. 9 Peugeot 908 Le Mans-winning team. Cool. Split, oh, say, over 40-some-odd team shares and one can imagine they’ll be painting the town red tonight. Or, perhaps, paying a child’s college educational costs. For sure.
- FICKLE FERRARI NO MORE: Of the 10 Ferrari F430 GT’s on hand this year for Le Mans, nine filled the race’s top-10 finishing LMGT2 spots. The lone party pooper was a fifth-place No. 85 Spyker C8 Laviolette. At a $285,000 base price, sales should surge Monday at your local Spyker dealership. (BTW: does anyone remember that the number one reason not to buy a Ferrari used to be its, um, “temperamental” nature?)
- PORSCHE PARADE OF FAILURES: Of the race’s seven Porsches (six LMGT2 Porsche 997 GT3’s'; one LMP2 RS Spyder) only one (No. 75 Endurance Asia 997) completed 24-hours but even it was “Not Classified” after failing to accumulate at least 70-percent of LMGT2 class-winner Risi Competizione No. 82 Ferrari F430GT’s 329 laps. Having racing’s best winning record, hands down, does anyone want to bet the boys back at Weissach aren’t a tad irritated just now? Maybe even cussing, too.
- RISI CLAIMS TWO PODIUM SPOTS: Rolex Series’ Krohn Racing’s Tracy Krohn, Nic Jönsson and Eric van de Poele scored third-place in LMGT2.
- CLOSE RACE: Only 11 laps (roughly 55-min.)spanned Le Mans’ top-four overall finishers. Absolutely on-the-edge-of-seat stuff there, boys and girls.
- NEXT CAREER STEP, Dancing With the Stars: Early in the race, Kolles No. 14 Audi R10 LMP1 driver Narain Karthikeyan leapt over pit wall, awkwardly landed and dislocated his left shoulder. Though the Audi team doctor would later declare Karthikeyan fit to race the ACO doctor didn't see it the same way and (here comes a lovely “Le Mans word”) "excluded" the driver from competition. His mates - Andre Lotterer and Charles Zwolsman Jr. - were then left to finish driving duties, each needing not to exceed four-consecutive hours and 14-hours, total, in the car.
- A LAZY, SUNNY AFTERNOON DRIVE: In a spot of Sunday driving on Saturday afternoon, at the 91-lap mark No. 009 Aston Martin-Lola driver Stuart Hall, with an Audi hot behind, looked to be driving with his mirrors when he at high speed steered straight right into the Bruichladdich Bruneau No. 26 Radical AER LMP2 of driver Tim Greaves. The incident provoked the ACO to (about five-hours) later "exclude" Hall, leaving co-drivers Peter Kox and Harold Primat to carry on, also walking that delicate 4/14-hour balance.
- RACERS ARE A SUPERSTICIOUS LOT: With about 35-minutes remaining in this year’s race, SPEEDtv's Leah Diffey from Le Mans rang fellow Australian and 1993 Le Mans winner Geoff Brabham, back in the motherland. The focus of the pair’s on-air conversation concerned the good fortune of No. 9 Peugeot 908 driver David Brabham, younger brother of Geoff, whose car was leading the race at the time while in the hands of co-driver Marc Gene. About three-minutes after the conversation ended and Diffey was supplanted by Bob Varsha in the broadcast chair, on-air video suddenly shifted to a clearly slowed No. 9 Peugeot. Commentators and fans alike strained for clues from the No. 9’s in-car camera and microphone as to what may be amiss and, soon, a pit-road camera focused on David Brabham, whose haggard look did little to assuage now-growing fears the leading car had somehow failed only minutes after that very close-to, if not celebratory telephone conversation between Diffey and the elder Brabham. Moments later, just when worries started really spiking, the No. 9 Peugeot positioned itself with fellow Peugeot sister cars for a three-car, picture-perfect finish and soon quickened its pace – though still likely having left Diffey and Geoff Brabham needing a change of underwear.
- NO FILTH ALLOWED: The No. 63 Corvette, it's last win in LMGT1 apparently secure, pulled into its pit with barely 20-min. remaining in the race and, just as suddenly, the Corvette Racing crew backed the car into its garage - wherein more than four crew members could simultaneously lay hands upon the car - and promptly started polishing away 24-hours worth of accumulated slim, muck and whatever so that the Corvette could cross the finish line - and have thousands of coincident images snapped - while in pristine appearance. "I think a car that races for 24-hours and wins should look like it," SPEEDtv's David Hobbs said. Blame the Marketing Guys for diminishing the value of that 24-hour “Red Badge of Courage.”
- WE NEED PRETTY FLAG-WAVES, TOO: With all the corner workers (of which Le Mans seems to have tons) waving all those flags on the final lap it's tough not to get wrapped up in feel-good emotions, believing the French really know how to stage with pomp and circumstance the now familiar annual end-of-race show. Just about the time wishes are harbored for a similar celebration on this side of the "Big Pond," one realizes that waving flags whilst standing on track pavement at 24-hours’ end won’t happen at Daytona International Speedway when there are four front-running cars within 11-seconds of each other (not 11 laps) still fighting tooth-and-nail for first place.
- THE TOUGHEST: Dan Binks has won 15 racing championships but he tearfully described his last few moments of the No. 63 Corvette's Le Mans win as his toughest-ever race moment – Binks’ first as a winning crew chief at Le Mans after eight years of try, try, trying again.
- TEARFUL, TOO: With a top-10 finish in sight (9th-place, actually), Rolex Series regular Patrick Dempsey was filled with emotion, too (anyone else see Michael Gue absolutely falling apart in the background?). Among the maximum three drivers in his No. 81 Ferrari F430GT - and a less-compromising setup for only three - it is probably the best way to go but such also requires maximum expenditure of physical, mental and emotional energy from each. Believe it, Dempsey’s a racer.
- THE BEST? With mere seconds remaining in the broadcast, SPEEDtv's Bob Varsha was doing a coverage-closing voiceover as snippets of preceding Le Mans race action were replayed. Announcing that SPEEDtv and the French Guys had renewed the channel's broadcast rights for another three races (congrats, guys), Varsha added, “(Le Mans) is the greatest motorsports event in the world!" Is that statement - or some variation thereof - to be found in every motorsports broadcast contract, everywhere? Regardless, at best it's a subjective comment that depends on any number of factors, notwithstanding the fact that most any “motorsports” race can be a heckuva show. Regardless of who might make it, by what objective criteria or scientific standard is such a statement based? Should someone come up with something, anything specific to claim a race as “the best” found annually the world over, someone else will assuredly have a counter. Similar to a Jew and Muslim each contending his religion to be the real thing and going to war over it, where is absolute, undeniable and complete proof that any of the claimed best-in-the-world races are indeed just that? Outside of objective, Isaac Newton-level proof, a claim of such is nothing more than marketing hyperbole best left to dolts who have little clue of the universe’s, much less motorsports' many different pleasures. Really, the only thing statements of that sort serve to accomplish is division where it'd be far better for all involved if everyone could evoke the respect and civility like that shown by a losing Alan McNish as he congratulated a winning David Brabham - against whom the former has competed for first-place trophies since the late-1980's.
- ON THE OTHER HAND, HAD AUDI WON: Peugeot - joined post-Sebring (or should that be “Sebring post”?) by Aston Martin and Oreca for the first round - last week again protested certain Audi R15 design elements. Centering primarily around airflow into and through the R15's frontal area, Peugeot previously also had questioned exiting airflow at the Audi's rear. Whatever, in shades of the 1981 Indy 500, for which Bobby Unser was declared its winner nearly five-months after the usual race-ending checkered flag (talk about a too-long race), a frustrated Peugeot said it was ready to pursue an Audi aero appeal even with the FIA, especially pending race results.
Hopefully it’s over ‘till next year, where and when I’ll see you, Sylvain, for your race at Le Mans. At least you’ve got a greater command of French.
Plus tard.
DC
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