It’s been quite a year so far, I’ve turned 50 years old, have turned my back on a ‘day job’ and quit the commute after more than 30 years, and, in two weeks time I’ll be witnessing, writing about an commentating on, my 50th 24 hour race.
I won’t claim to have watched every moment of action for all 50, these ageing bones need at least a short attempt at sleep most times nowadays, but in 1200 hours of on track action there have been some astonishing happenings, some amazing racing, some heartbreaking incidents, and, very sadly, one major tragedy.
In a fit of utter self indulgence I’m going to take all of you on a trip down memory lane – and through some of the moments that have defined the appeal of 24 Hour racing for this individual at least:
1. 1995 – Le Mans 24 Hours
The very first seen live for me, and that came after a father and son conversation with my then 7 year old lad James. We’d already become very regular attendees at a variety of racing events from BTCC to F1, and a lot of club racing at our local circuit Brands Hatch.
Lately though we’d been looking closely at sportscars, and it was the simply awesome McLaren F1s that floated the boat – A plan was hatched and so began what became a series of Page & Moy slogs across to the Le Mans 24 Hours – The cars were stunning, we were there for the McLarens but fell in love too with the awesome sounding Computacenter liveried Marcos LM600s, a livery designed by DSC’s own Marcus Potts!
The weather was awful though and we were woefully unprepared for it – but soldiered on!
We were aware of the dramas overnight, JJ Lehto’s charge in the rain, but it was the Harrods car that we were following, it featured, of course, Derek Bell on the driver line-up together with his son Justin and Andy Wallace – a British car, an all British driver line up featuring one of my all time heroes, why wouldn’t you follow it?
And would you believe it the car was leading! The moment for us though was when news started to trickle in that the car was in trouble, the gearbox was not in the rudest of health and Radio Le Mans had spotted it of course. It was then one of those creeping periods of inevitability that saw the cars lead diminish, then a longer than planned pitstop saw it out of the lead and in fast cruise mode to the finish – We lived the drama with the team from the discomfort of the tribunes and loved and hated every single moment!.
2. 1997 – Le Mans 24 Hours
I missed the 1996 race due to the demands of the day job, then as a Press Officer for the UK Government but in ’97 James and I were back – Page and Moy again taking the strain!
Oddly this was a race that of all my 24 Hour adventures, I remember the least!
I recall being astounded that there were no fewer than eight Porsche 911 GT1s on the grid, or as a McLaren fan, eight mortal enemies!
By now of course we were into the era of the simply stunning longtail McLarens and it was love at first sight.
It was love at first hearing though for the Panoz Esperante GTR1 – I had simply never, ever herd anything like them before – utterly awesome.
The racing moments were late race dramas for both the leading Porsche 911 GT1 and one of the surviving GTC McLarens, both bursting into flames within 20 minutes of each other.
If there was another memorable moment for me though, it was a group of fans who simply did not move for the entire time we were there, the Nissan faithful had arrived to support the brand new R390 GT1s and though they were doomed to fail the fans were an inspiration, cheering and waving their flags every single time a Nissan hove into view. They’d be a familiar part of our Le Mans experience for the next two years too. Oh and Tom Kristensen, a name I vaguely knew from the pages of Autosport, won the race, whatever happened to him?
3. 1998 – Le Mans 24 Hours
We were back again, and so were the McLarens, though fewer of them and with less expectation of success. This surely was going to be Mercedes Benz’s year, the amazing looking CLK GTR of 1997 had been succeeded by the even more awesome CLK LMs, and they had already shown how fast they were even before they got to Le Sarthe.
BMW were there too with their chunky but purposeful Williams GP designed LMP
And then there were the Toyotas, what an amazing looking thing the fabled GT-One is even today, compared to the much improved Nissans they simply looked revolutionary, 200 mph fast whilst standing still!
The moment of the race though came early as, astonishingly, the Mercedes and BMWs failed, design flaws bit and bit hard – none of them made it to darkness – It would be difficult to overestimate the stunning surprise of it all!
We were still gripped of course, GT1 was in its pomp and the battle was still joined at the front. Porsche came through to win of course, Allan McNish getting his first win as a result, but our favourite, the EMKA McLaren was well up too, one of a number of cars I’ve held a candle for that have just missed out on podium finishes!
4. 1999 – Le Mans 24 Hours
Porsche had gone but there was a simply astonishing grid once again – The new Mercedes was an amazing looking bit of kit, though it had had troubles in the run up to the race, on pure speed there seemed little to touch the CLR!
Panoz had their astounding looking roadsters there for the first time, Nissan had a quick new car too (though one of them had been eliminated in a pre-race shunt, and the Toyotas looked stronger than ever, the red and white livery made them look in maximum attack mode (and they were!)
And then there were the newcomers, Audi – with four cars! The open topped R8R looked, well a little clunky in its styling (though I did like the rear light treatment – The story was that Audi were unsure of which route to take between open topped and coupe LMPs – so they did both!
We fancied the coupe R8Cs, handsome looking beasts, but they failed, as did, in far more dramatic style, the Mercedes!
For us though THE moment happened in the wee small hours, we’d been for an hours shuteye and had decided to watch at Turn One, night racing is an aspect of the 24 hour discipline that has real magic, real drama, the sounds seem different but the sights are simply off the clock, headlamps dazzle, the glow of the tortured brake discs and popping flaming exhausts in red, blue and green!
And then it al went wrong, We’d seen the Toyota coming, and heard it too, but the next thing we heard was a screech and the unmistakeable sound of scattered gravel before the dull ‘THUNK’ that all racers hate. It happened right in front of us and the Toyota was wrecked, Thierry Boutsen left sitting in a monocoque denuded of almost all of its red warpaint.
He stayed in the car a long, long time and my then 11 year old son was very worried indeed, that was until a British marshal came over and said “It’s OK son they are just taking their time getting him out because he says he has a bit of pain in his back”. James was much reassured (and a very belated thank you to our marshal friend for that) but of course this was the accident that would finish Boutsen’s driving career.
As the clear up was completed, our friend he marshal came back, after piling up a substantial portion of the wrecked #2 car’s bodywork behind the tyre barrier he returned to the head, pulled out a section, and handed it over the fence to James – It is still on the wall here to this day, signed the following week by an astonished Allan McNish at the Goodwood festival of Speed, a couple of years later by Ralf Kelleners as he made a one-off appearance in the British GT Championship, and at Le Mans later still when Thierry Boutsen was back, this time assisting the Champion Racing team.
The Toyota had been chasing down the leading BMW at the time of the accident and that car too had a race ending shunt. The sister car though came through to win, despite a late race charge from Ukyo Katayama in the surviving Toyota that ended with the Japanese star suffering a puncture, he recovered to finish second with Audi third (and fourth). A new era was about to dawn.
5. 2000 – Le Mans 24 Hours
A significant race for a couple of reasons, my last as a spectator and much, much more prescient, Audis first win!
The race featured a veritable squadron of Panoz Roadsters (5 in total), plus a quartet of Cadillacs and Oreca’s new Chrysler engined Reynards, Hugues de Chaunac’s squad stepping up after dominating GT2 (later GT1) with the iconic Viper GTS-Rs.
Whilst the Panoz were as spectacular as usual Audi’ three car train was all but untouchable.
The moments though had little to do with the action on track, the first was in the lead up to the pre-race as a fleet of open topped Camaros made their way to the grid for the presentation of the drivers to the crowd, Chevrolet celebrating their coming force of the Corvette with overt backing of the ACO, Corvette’s debuting that year as course cars too.
The Camaros looked the part, right up until the point that the train of cars, which had joined the cars at Karting Corner, slowed to a stop at the Ford Chicane, or at least most of them did, a screech of brakes and one poor driver made very heavy contact indeed with the rear of the car in front – it happened right in front of me and the face of the unfortunate (and rather dozey driver) lives with me still!
The second moment came post race, in the always epic traffic jam exiting the circuit. Audi had absolutely smashed the opposition in the race, a dynasty began that weekend – Alongside us in the jam was a VW camper van, side door open and a couple of German fans celebrating the win – but suddenly their faces fell, but why?
I looked down, and up against the window of the coach James had a pad – On the front it read 1-0, the score that Germany had lost to England the previous evening in the group stage of the European Championships!
