LeMans is my favorite race of the year! HOWEVER, I really miss the participation of BMW (LMP), Mercedes, the BIG Ferraris, the wicked Toyata unlimiteds, and others. Am I alone here?

Someone needs to step up and smack the A8s in the nose from time to time and it will NEVER Panoz! I am sorry, but those Panoz cars are so ugly and will never be world-beaters!

Anyway, I hope we have a deep field next year.

Go C5Rs!

 

Nope, you're not alone - a race, particularly a long-distance race like LeMans, is only a great race when there are lots of different makes competing. I mean, it's 5 a.m. on the East Coast, I haven't checked in yet with Speedtv.com radio broadcast (which can be accessed via the web), but I know that an Audi, and probably three, are leading the race. Nothing wrong with that, but I knew that that was going to occur mid-race last year. There is no real competition in their class.

I haven't checked in to see where the Ferrari 550 is running. It ws going at it with the Corvettes at night. Ron Fellows sure was impressed with the car. And how about that Morgan?!

 

it would be something to see!
I'm not sure any of the auto companys could afford to play for long if there was a bunch of them putting forward MAXIMUM efforts in the prototype class (like Audi has done). but the racing might put NASCAR to shame.

that Morgan will probably be the best story of the race. even if they don't make the minimum distance needed to be ruled a finisher.

 

Looks like the Corvettes are headed to another class win. It's interesting --several years ago, it was all GM could do to get the cars to finish. Now they are so well-developed that they can afford to wait for the competition to fall away.

And, alas, our Morgan is out . . . . (The last time I saw a Morgan in a 24-hour race was at Daytona in 1968. The guy who entered it in competition, drove it by himself! He'd run several hours, come in, climb out of the car, get some sleep, food or whatever, and then go back out. Obviously, that's no longer permitted, but it sure was fun to root for the guy. I wonder who he was.)

 

I wish the Oreca Vipers were there to battle the Corvette's it would make th victory more :smash:

 

The Ferrari caught fire - in the eleventh hour I believe - possibly caused by a catastrophic engine failure - it wasn't clear.

In a post race interview, Ron Fellows said the C5-Rs could travel three more laps than the Ferrari between pit stops, and they calculated a two minute victory margin for a Corvette considering the Ferraris quicker lap times, but more time in the pits.

If the 550 had kept going at it's early pace, there might have been a real battle in GTS.

Looks like the #63 car had a nominal run with no problems. In about the fourteenth hour the #64 car suffered a broken sump cover in the pits - apparently the car was let down off the jacks and there was something under the sump cover that broke it. It took about ten minutes to replace, and they were passed by a Viper, but quickly gained the second GTS spot back once under way again.

Duke

 

Even Team Orica is having trouble getting sponsorship for the race (they are unsure of what's going to happen in 2003). It looks like rest of the world couldn't give a damn about Le Mans anymore :(

 

I was hoping for the Ferrari to stay in and see if the C5Rs could step up the times if it was really close! THAT would be a race!

Are the S7s carrying weight or restrictor limitations? They do not seem competitive this year.

 

Yes the S7s are carrying weight restriction and small restrictor since they have not been able to produce the required street cars for the class. The BMW M3 GTR has the same restrictions as BMW does not intend to produce the required street cars.

As for the Panoz I love the sound and looks of the Bat Mobile. :yesnod: Just wish it was in the black and silver Visteon colors than t looked cool. Panoz has always had crappy luck at Le Mans. :nonod: Joest has always had amazing luck even when he was running against the Porsche factory in the early 80s with a 956. He was the first to win over the factory Group C Porsches. Now he is the factory works team with R 8s Scary :eek: I'm not that surprised he is winning. Panoz is doing a good job considering they are running on 1/3 to 1/2 the budget.

I would love the see the GTP or your "unlimiteds" come back the Group C and GTP cars were awesome. Also the old GT1s of the McLaren GTRs, Lotus Elise GT1, 911 GT1, and the AMG CLK GTR that dominated and killed the FIA GT GT1 series. They were amazing to watch at Sebring Octoberfest in 98. :cheers: The AMG CLK GTR is not the same AMG CLR that flipped at Le Mans.

Maybe Cadillac could get Oreca to run the Caddy LMP 900. Oreca is proven to win when given a budget that matches the competition, and did very well with a car needing more development that Chrysler jumped ship on. Audi just has much more R&D, track time, and $ in their cars than anyone else in the field. Maybe next year the Bentley will replace the R8 as the favored child of Audi, VW and Bentley as rumored. Audi did run a GTP with the R8C hardtop in 99. The R8C was a beautiful car. Then the R8 will be run by private entries such as Champion and Johnasson.


[Modified by 93Polo, 4:35 PM 6/16/2002]

 

The Bentley is a wicked looking car! I love that car and hope it can step up to next level.

The C5Rs, like the Jeffersons TV series, must also "move on up" to stay out front. As evidenced by the Ferrari 550 and the unrestricted S7s, we need more straight line speed and handling. The shorter races will not provide the same "victory by attrition" or "fuel econony" as the endurance races. Hopefully the brand new C5Rs that run the next race (mid-ohio?) will address these issues.

Nevertheless, it is great for the Corvette racing heritage to have back-to-back LeMans victories! It certainly makes the Viper guys quiet for awhile.

 

The 550 is shaping up to be a pretty impressive machine. Remember, the C5R is a full factory effort, while ProDrive runs the Ferrari without direct factory backing. If the cars ever show up in the ALMS, they would be tough to beat in the shorter events.

 

I read that C5Rs 63 and 64 are being retired after Le Mans for newer cars.
Does anyone know what the improvements in the newer C5Rs will be?

Paul

 

first off: panoz ugly? :confused: i suppose to each his own but i thought that the two panoz cars were the best looking cars in the LMP class. just as an aside, i worked an ALMS race in las vegas in 2000, there are only two cars out there that sound like race cars: 1) C5-R and 2) panoz.
as for ugly, i thought the morgan was :U then again, i'm not much on the older style anyway. just my .02
i sure would like to see what the next generation of C5-R has got. it would be embarrasing for corvette to come back to le mans next year as defending champs and on the 50th anniversary and get spanked :nonod:
i never like winning a race by attrician, but then again, that is endurance racing. i'm with some of you others out there that would have liked to see the ferrari finish in third! :yesnod:
all in all, a beautiful effort on the C5-R team for consistancy and clockwork-like reliability. :cheers:

 

while we're all on the subject, can anyone explain to me why g.m. is still supporting those gawddawful caddies? :confused: they're good looking cars and all but since when does cadillac have a le mans racing heritage? who at cadillac brand has connections that high up at g.m. to get them to keep pouring money into that pit :bs ? i mean if they were winning, he11, even if they were IMPROVING, i would be supportive. but geez, three years later and they still can't get the g**d*** things to restart! :mad
meanwhile, the corvettes (g.m.s true sports and racing car) continues to soldier on, and win, in the shadows of the cadillac interest. :flag

 

I wish the Oreca Vipers were there to battle the Corvette's it would make th victory more
_______


Me too John... without all of the BS restrictions that drove the factory Vipers out of the series. The idiotic Germans at Daimler-Chrysler have all but abandoned the Viper racing program. I think that our days are numbered, unless something drastic happens.

I wish Lutz were back at DC. Congrats to GM for running a great race! American's winning anything is always good.

JMO.

Brad

 

Cadillacs raced at LeMans long ago...it may even be earlier than Corvette did. Cadillac is staring down the barrel of 100 years of continuous production. I guess GM wants Caddy to be visible in Europe so it can compete against the likes of Mercedes etc.

 

R&D has been stopped on the Viper program and no plans to run the new Viper at Le Mans :mad

Caddy won class in 1950. GM wants to celebrate the heritage as well try to kill the grandma and grandpa image of Cadillac. That is also why Caddy is offering a manual in some of their new cars. I would really like to see Cadillac come out w/ a M3 killer. Ok now I'm dreaming..... :rolleyes:

 

the news about caddies racing at lemans was new to me. i heard somewhere, obviously somewhere unreliable, that this new caddy program was the first time caddy had gotten into the endurance racing fray.
i still think my question is valid, shouldn't we see at least one of the caddies finish the race without spending major time in the garage? even if it finished last in class. i mean, geez, i remember hearing the same problems on the caddy when they first competed two or three years ago! :rolleyes:
as for upgrading their image, isn't that the same thing oldsmobile tried to do before the got :smash: ? i'm not saying caddy shouldn't go racing but it's not like g.m. couldn't rent a track for a few days and run the ***** off those things to get them as well sorted out as possible. i just still can't figure out how they still can't get the things to restart :confused: , breaking things on track, i understand. not being able to restart in the pits after three years of development just baffles me. :bs


[Modified by clutchdust, 4:39 PM 6/17/2002]

 

the starter issue is nothing new for sure. the C5R's have had the same problem. this year they went with dual starters for lemans (I'll bet the Caddie team will follow suite).
seems like starters and trannies are the most likely things to fail in 24hrs of racing. you'd think that someone would make a starter that could work under a blowtorch :D and a trannie that could grind up a craftsman wrench and keep going :eek:

 

:yesnod: 1950:

A relatively stock, column shift 3-speed Series 61 hardtop

Driven by Sam and Miles collier, finished 10th overall!

The second was a rebodied 1950 Cadllac that the French dubbed "Le Monstre" (which is easy to translate)!! :eek:

The streamlined roadster was driven by Briggs Cunningham and Phil Walters in the 1950 race. After 'Le Monstre' hit a sand bank and lost time it still came home 11th! AMAZING!! :flag

I love this stuff! :D
David


[Modified by davidwp97, 8:55 PM 6/18/2002]