It’s been revised fifteen times in almost a hundred years of operation. It still uses sections of roadway that are normally open throughout the year for regular traffic. Chicanes be damned, the speeds that are achieved on the Circuit de la Sarthe are immense. The racing machines that try out the course take a beating like none other…full throttle followed by massive brake use and then a suspension workout through the curves and then you do it again, and again, for twenty-four hours. Le Mans is hallowed ground for a reason: the design of the track is a car-breaker. If the engine doesn’t bite the bullet after being rang like a bell for hours on end, you can bet that brake rotors and pads are going to be hot enough to have a half-life when it’s time to change them out. The Mulsanne straight has been kinked up since the late 1980s and the Tertre Rouge corner was modified after Allan Simonsen’s fatal crash in 2013.
But the track is only a tenth of the story of LeMans. The real stories involve the cars and the people who thrash, test, break stuff, engineer new parts, test more, drive ungodly amounts of miles in order to have a hope in hell of finishing on top. The people tend to be left behind. Those who won get their name in the record books and everybody else has their memories. But the cars…you can still hear them today, from the old Bentleys to the psychotic wildcat screams of today’s prototypes. Have a listen below:
Well, I’m spent.