Any Le Mans Drivers/Owners on F-Chat?

What a moron.

How many people do YOU know that even have a race trailer that halls around several Ferrari's that are not part of a dealership race team?

It was a question for a niche group of people. Guess there are not a lot of people with their own 75 trailer and rig in OC that can answer it, otherwise, they would have.

 

Maybe he's moved on to a smaller pond?
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That is too funny!

 

You must be joking!

If you’re not I’ll die of mortification. I was only there five times in total, wandered about in a daze and ended up lucky. You have heard it all, read it all. That’s it. What do you want - a sixth installment about how I shared a car with a guy called Roland and we won outright? Aint going to happen!

Why don’t we start a thread about 360 F1 clutch replacement? Now that would be comparatively new ground!

 

no more? Well, it would be nice to catalog these stories in a dedicated thread nonetheless.

 

Wish we could go topic again.
It started very well and could get a nomination for tread of year.
Unfortunatly it ended in an RL yes/no discussion.
Ofcouse the RL discussion is interesting but please start another tread for it.

Mark, or other LM drivers/team owners: please share some more beautifull stories with us in this tread.

 

I know no less than a dozen places to put a 75' tractor trailer rig in the LA/OC area. I for one find awhite very annoying since trying to crash this thread with the harsh words he had for the users calling Mr. Linders bluff and just couldn't be bothered to offer assistance... BTW, I would have to see that 75' trailer since the California highway law is what 65' with the tractor? Hmmm... Shades of more stories if you ask me... Matteo, a couple friends or mine have several Challenge and GT 360's and a couple of Enzo's for good measure, and they haul them around in race transporters and Renegades. Was that your question?

 

If you want to spend some time with some of the Legends of Motorsport, you might try Targa 66. Plenty of Le Mans experiance there.

http://www.targa66.com/

I was surprised to find Brian Redman and Vic Elford at the Roebling
Road canteen with only their wives and so easy to speak with. As a race fan, I was very lucky that day-the stories were amazing. These men were/are giants...

 

Lucky is right! I'm jealous! Bobby Rahal spoke the other evening and he and Brian go way back to 80's Le Mans together. He speaks very highly of Brian. Hope you had a good conversation. His word is gospel.

 

Fantastic Stories Brian, Mark, Joe.
I of course have no idea, nor care who Roland Linder is.

I love Le Mans, but have neither the talent nor funding to get there. We were lucky enough to win a regional NASA Pro7 race with 5 entrants, and make the 25 hours of Thunderhill in a 20 year old Rx-7...
Our story, as told by a co-driver is here: http://shedracing.com/25hours.html
One day, hopefully that will be Daytona, Sebring, or Le Mans.

Marcus

 

Way to go Marcus! I love that race, it has gotten so popular over the last several years.

 

Marcus, great first post! Thanks for the great link.

Welcome (even though you've been a member for a while LOL).

V.

 

Interesting change to the Mothers ad.

http://www.mothersreflections.com/
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Here's what I see on there today in the reel world section....
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Goodness me! Clearly Roland did not know that his involvement at Le Mans had been misinterpreted and grossly exaggerated.

 

How could he not?

 

Exactly!

 

From Websters

sarcasm
One entry found for sarcasm.


Main Entry: sar·casm
Pronunciation: 'sär-"ka-z&m
Function: noun
Etymology: French or Late Latin; French sarcasme, from Late Latin sarcasmos, from Greek sarkasmos, from sarkazein to tear flesh, bite the lips in rage, sneer, from sark-, sarx flesh; probably akin to Avestan thwar&s- to cut
1 : a sharp and often satirical or ironic utterance designed to cut or give pain <tired of continual sarcasms>
2 a : a mode of satirical wit depending for its effect on bitter, caustic, and often ironic language that is usually directed against an individual

 

Please see:
http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?p=135515465#post135515465

 

Here’s a Le Mans story that has nothing to do with actually driving in the 24 hours, but it sort of shows you the sort of people that were there. There was always so much going on, in fact it was sort of like being part of an acting troupe in that most of the humor was reserved for backstage antics...

First you should know that the entire event takes almost a week when measured from stem to stern, certainly from Tuesday to the weekend, one way or another. This then leaves various folk roaring in and out of the circuit every day; in the 80's the ACO used a horrendously complicated system of passes to regulate this traffic. Leaving aside the passes for people, each car was issued with TWO permits, an ‘external’ and an ‘internal’. In practical terms that meant driving up to the gate, handing in you car’s ‘external’ pass, waiting while the fellow searched through every bit of paper in a box to find a matching number, then, once found, taking this new ‘internal’ pass and driving on to the paddock. Leaving the circuit one went through the same system, only the ‘internal’ pass was exchanged for a matching ‘external’ one.

Now all this fustering and searching created the most enormous traffic jam at certain times of the day; even when everyone should have been at work there were cars stacked up at the gate like lemmings by a cliff, and there was only one gate if you wanted to get in or out.

On this particular day I was riding shotgun with David Kennedy as we sat in line to quit the circuit, and it seemed to be taking forever. I looked out the back window to see what the queue behind looked like, and in doing so noticed that the following car, a silver Ford Sierra, had an English plate. I looked closer and recognized a racing scribe, the lead writer for Motoring News, which was a weekly paper. It was a hot French evening at the end of a hot French day and he had wound down all the windows and cranked back the sun roof in an effort to find a cooling breeze.

“Hey, David, guess who’s behind? It’s D.T.”
“Him? Him?? I hate him!! He has never given me a good review, never ever! I don’t know what it is, but every time he reports a race I come out badly. I could win the damn thing and the headline would read “BILL BLOGS HAS AMAZING RACE TO 8th. KENNEDY MANAGES TO FINISH.”

“Well I don’t have that problem. Actually I think he is very impartial, what with him giving me at least a paragraph a week for being dressed and sober. You’re wrong. He’s great. Pulitzer material. Say, did you once drive over his dog or something?”

“Never mind that, I’ll get him now! Just you watch......,” said David, squinting into the rear view mirror, his face twisting into wicked smile.

That was not a calming statement, not by any means. You see, I knew David.

With that we arrived at the gate, handed in our car’s chit and waved about our wrist bracelets which were our personal passes. A tired old boy took the chit and started to shuffle through the box of matching tickets, all of which seemed to be out of sequence. I suddenly felt exposed, after all we were in a loaner Mazda that didn’t belong to David and thus a dented rear bumper wouldn’t bother him at all. Neither would a dented trunk. Or a dented roof. I hoped D.T. had spectacular insurance.
As the hairs started to stiffen on the back of my neck I began to slip down the seat back, heading for the foot well. Kennedy’s name might be Mudd, but mine, thus far, was still looked on kindly by the fourth estate.

The matching pass was found. The ACO man lent into our car and stuck it on the dash, and David moved the Mazda forward. I breathed a sigh of relief - and then David stopped, about twenty feet in front of the gate.

What the hell was he planning? My curiosity got he better of me. I snuck up from the footwell and glanced back to see D.T. in the car behind opening his briefcase and pulling out his passes. At that instant, with superb timing, David revved the engine and dumped the clutch, his left foot hard on the brake.

The Mazda struggled from the contradictory inputs, the front wheels locked while the rears overcame their smaller disks and spun wildly. A rooster tail of dirt and gravel shot out from under the back tires and arced, with parabolic perfection, up to the sky and then down through the Sierra’s gaping sun roof, landing in squarely in the open briefcase still on D.T.’s lap. It was amazing! I couldn’t see into the fellow’s car - there was a fog of filth filling the inside, it was a wonder he could breath! Perhaps he couldn’t!! Gravel rattled down on the Ford and more dirt powered into it. The ACO man, his hand extended in expectation of a pass, jumped back aghast, presuming from the noise and muck that the briefcase had exploded or some such.

David laughed like a comic book villain, shrieking with glee as he popped his foot off the brake and our car jerked forward and away from the scene of the crime. By now I was back in the wheel well, praying that D.T. and the ACO official would have temporary amnesia when it came to identifying the car in front.

All I knew was that if D.T. had a clean change of underwear stuck in his briefcase at the start of the day, well, it wasn’t clean any more. And the car! The way we left it the interior looked like he had been plowing the back forty.........in Australia!

The next day, as I was lurking by the pitt wall trying to look cool, D.T. found me.

“Do you know what some bas!ard did to me yesterday?..........

I’m surprised that it didn’t replace the race as that week’s headlines.



You know, sometimes I miss stuff like that......

 

Please keep writing these stories.

 

Awww man Kram -- if you're ever in the Seattle area a few beers are on me.

 

Another great story Kram!

You made us wait long enough!


ryalex:

NOW I get why you posted the cover of A Million Little Pieces, thanks to this thread:

http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=91453

 

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