When you need a half hour break from the family over the next few days, you could do worse than putting on the headphones and watching this short documentary about Corvette’s efforts at the 1960 24 Hours of LeMans. Corvette has become a prominent (sometimes dominant) team at the 24 in recent years, but that wasn’t necessarily the case in 1960 when the ‘Vette was still wrestling with the sentiment that the car was underpowered at its debut 7 years earlier.
I don’t know that the 1970 running of the LeMans 24 Hours race is particularly pivotal for the public at large, but that particular running is just so cemented in my mind. I’m sure the documentation of it in the form of McQueen’s LeMans is the key reason. Also significant for Hans Herrmann and Richard Attwood’s victory that gave Porsche their first outright win at the race: A feat they’d repeat 15 more times and started Porsche down their road to winningest team in the event’s history.
These images from Flickr user ZANTAFIO56 only serve to further add to the importance and beauty of the race in my mind. He seems to have been all over the track, with some marvelous shots from several corners of La Sarthe and the pits as well. More of Zantafio56’s shots at his flickr set. Fantastic!
I just realized that this is my third 917-centric post in a week. I’ll take a break from her now. I promise.
This clip of 1966 LeMans highlights, which looks to have been pulled from an episode of Legends of Motorsport (where’s a Legends of Motorsport DVD box set, Speed Channel?) has some very nice details, including voice over narration from Graham Hill, Bruce McLaren, John Surtees, and Carroll Shelby.
The absolute highlight, though, has to be the footage of the go-kart racing on the carnival midway starting about 3.5 minutes in. Excellent footage of some 9 or 10 year old boys sprinting and leaping into their sportscar bodied karts complete with bucket crash helmets and miniature Dunlop blues. The voice over by John Wyer, while they race is describing the race at LeMans, but meshes very well with the karting action. Great stuff.