|
MY first trip to Le Mans was in 1972, motivated in large part by reading about and watching Ford's assault on the race unfold from 1964 on. The first time I saw pictures of the Ford GT, that was it. ABC's Wide World of Sports was my avenue - and the only one back then -to endurance racing. I caught Steve McQueen's "Le Mans" in a Times Square movie theater the day after it was released in June 1971. Blown away by the movie only increased my desire to find and save two nickels to rub together so I could get there the following year. Once I arrived, I could immediately feel that Steve's film fully captured the flavor of Le Mans right down to "T", with the atmosphere from pit exit thru to the Dunlop Curve down to the esses and into Tertre Rouge remaining that way for many more years.
I can't even begin to describe the level of sensory overload I felt right from the beginning during first practice, particularily the long walk around the outside of the Dunlop Curve down to the start of the Mulsanne Straight, with the combined aroma of cooking French Fries and sausage, the faint wiff and sweet smell of what I later discovered was Castrol "R" put out by some streaking machine. The carnival, too, off to the side, and places there I wouldn't have taken my children. What was so beautiful, when it finally got dark, was the sound and headlights bouncing of the trees and the backfire from unburned fuel when they braked and downshifted for Tertre Rouge. You could park yourself against a tree for a while, as it was heavily wooded down there, taking it all in, doing your best to make out who it was cresting the top of the Esses with blazing headlights; the Matras made it easy as they would clear the wax out of your ears. And without a doubt, my most vivid memory, was listening to the Matras again scream around the Dunlop curve during the middle of the night as I lay in my tent as rain beat down.
It's all gone now..the trees, the carnival, the food, the little run down to Tertre Rouge..all gone, all made to look like some modern GP track, in the name of making things safer.
Todd
Last edited by Matra-simca; 24 Jun 2013 at 22:39.
|