John, Mary & Kathryn's Travel Page

________, 1997

The 24 Hours of Le Mans

Note: This page is not written yet, but I thought we'd just put some photos and captions up. When I get the rest of my Le Mans photos printed, the full text-and-images page will be uploaded so check back in a month or so.

A McLaren GT1 car accelerating down a short straight early Saturday evening. McLarens eventually finished second and third, an outstanding achievement for a GT1 car that was developed from an actual road-going production model (if you can call the ultra-exotic, million dollar McLaren F1 road car a mere "production" model.) The McLarens' main competition, the Porsche GT1 racer, was a pure from-the-ground-up race car, developed for racing first and homologated merely to satisfy the prerequisites to competition.

Porsches 911s have competed in virtually every Le Mans since the advent of the model. For a time the increasingly fearsome racing 911s, in twin-turbo "935" trim and packing over 700 horsepower under the slope-nosed and stretched racing bodywork, were overall winners. Age and rule changes have pushed the 911s out of the winner's circle, but the model still rules the GT2 class. In 1997 the 911s defeated a host of more modern challengers, including Chrysler Vipers, Saleen Mustangs, and a Callaway Corvette to win GT2 again.

One of the best, and most classic, views of the Le Mans course is from the grassy rise downstream of the Dunlop bridge. At dawn on Sunday, the cold gray light of the start of the race's second day spreads over the French countryside and reveals the few cars that have survived the grueling night, as they crest under the Dunlop bridge and keen down the hill and into the left-hander, their drivers all alone, exhausted, and without even the company of another car anywhere in sight.

Sometimes you need to shut out the noise and dust and announcers, and just admire the beauty of the track and the curves, the cars and a perfect line carved on the edge of adhesion, like the tracing left by an ice skater's blade.

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