72nd Le Mans 24 Hours - Le Mans From Home
© Tom Kjos

Tom Kjos might have made it to Le Mans this year, for the first time. Next year Tom? Here he adds his observations of the great race, and explains why he won't be reporting from Mid-Ohio. We haven't finished with Le Mans on dsc yet, but even in cyberland, not everything happens on the spur of the moment - especially when the next weekend's race meetings arrive all too soon. Galleries from David Legangneux and Regis Lefebure to come, plus a look at the GTS and GT races - but all in good time, not NOW. Ed.

Burnsville, Minnesota, USA – Audi restored order quickly at Le Mans by putting the interloper – Andy Wallace’s Zytek – behind them, didn’t they? As expected, the racing was immediately good at the front; even a 24 hour race is contested from flag-to-flag, no cruising allowed, and JJ Lehto, starting the race for Champion Racing, challenged Allan McNish’s second place Audi Sport UK R8. Five of the seven GTS cars arranged themselves in an end-to-end freight train, headed, surprisingly, by the two Prodrive Ferrari 550 Maranellos, and trailed by the Larbre 550. The two Corvettes settled in between. Sascha Maassen and Jörg Bergmeister were partnered with Patrick Long to lead GT for Petersen White Lightning Racing, back to defend its team title without 2003 partner Alex Job Racing. They lead GT with Orbit – BAM! in tow. Again this year some things are very familiar to American Le Mans Series fans.

We were asked to be in France for this race – to cover Le Mans for another publication – and Malcolm was alright with it. But by Sebring we had decided that this would not be a good year to add a trip to Europe to our nine ALMS races. Among other things, there is a wedding – daughter Courtney in September. So we are home, dependent on Speedtv, as we were for Daytona in February.

One of Hugh Chamberlain’s TVR Tuscans is the first to merit a mention – slow on course. Whatever the problem is, Hugh’s comment as the car comes slowly toward the pits is one for the books, “Drivers tend to panic in these situations.” Soon after that, still in the first hour, Ron Fellows finds a tire wall with the #63 Corvette. The interviewer gives him repeated opportunities to offer an excuse – he doesn’t. “No, it was entirely my fault, I simply lost concentration.” How rare; and how impressive. Is there a better human being in the sport?

In October 2001, they found a serious murmur – my aortic valve would need replacing sometime, but not right then. There was other detail, but I ignored it best I could – too long, actually. By the time we finished Sebring this year, I could ignore it no longer. What looked and felt (well, if you’re in denial) like a virus was congestive heart failure.

Paul Belmondo – no not Paul Belmondo, but rather the son – demonstrated to the vast Speedtv audience that the last class act in the Belmondo family was his father. Not only did he rail loudly at a certain “F.C.” who “hit him from behind”, but to Hobbs (and to us) it appears that the hit was a figment of his imagination.

Time to get organized. I’d been the “uncommitted” too long – nine years. I heard that you make Jerry Springer at ten. So I asked Jeannie to marry me. Inexplicably, she said yes. After telling family, we went to Las Vegas at the end of April.

Chris Dyson is there with Jan Lammers, a kind of foreign exchange program after Jan’s drive with Dyson Racing at Sebring, building understanding. Chris is going to be filling his “spare time” with Toyota Atlantics. A good place to hone one’s skills.

Rob is there in France, too. If you picked ten great national and international issues out of a hat, Rob and I might not agree on one. And I can’t think of anyone I like more in this sport.

After solid qualifying and practice, the Ferrari 360 Maranello fades fast. Since none of the other GT cars had a chance at the win anyway, that leaves it a Porsche show. Again. And where do you see the best Porsche racing in the world? From Le Mans results lately, the ALMS, it seems.

I had an Angiogram. That’s the thing where they put a catheter from the groin up a vein to the heart and inject a dye. “Clean,” the cardiologist says of my arteries. At least we don’t have that to deal with. It must be the buffalo wings and Heineken diet.

Gravel. Little stuff. The ACO had last year to learn that they had made a huge mistake and since then to replace it with something less damaging. They didn’t. What excuse can they have? The race was worse for it. To the extent that places changed and the race turned on tire punctures, they’re no better than any other race, series, or sport that lets artificial devices “create excitement”. If you praised the “action” in this race, I suggest you leave out that attributable to bad gravel.

On May 28 they opened me up, shut me off and did a valve job. Happily, when they went to jump start me…well, here I am. Friends and family were there or sent their best, and I got a nice bouquet and note from “Your Friends at the ALMS”. Thanks to everyone.

Doug Duchardt, GM’s Head Racing Guy, stops by for a little chat with the Speed guys. He says the C6-R is “in homologation” and to “expect it at the beginning of next year, the first race of the ALMS…” If so that will be a departure from past practice. Or can it be that Sebring is so divorced in time from the remainder of the ALMS schedule that the good folks over at GM don’t know it’s actually part of the ALMS? Well…Le Mans is a “stand alone”. They say that Corvette Racing mandates that its drivers wear the HANS device, and that the need to accommodate that contraption and different size drivers was a design issue. Good for them. They didn’t wait for someone else, and they put in extra work to make it work for their drivers.

Kelly and I exchanged phone calls when something interesting happened, but we both let it go for the overnight hours, USA Central time. I called him at 0800 Sunday with an hour to go and with some drama at the front. It didn’t get much closer after that, though. I still haven’t seen another one to compare with Sebring 1999.

Congratulations to Clint and everyone else at Intersport (I think I said you could do it last winter when I visited your shops – really nice digs, by the way). We’ll hope that between them, Intersport and Team Bucknum can put in some racing this season and make something of LMP2. Thus far, based on Sebring and Le Mans, most of it hardly even looks like racing, and certainly not the “pinnacle of the sport”. What in the world is a WR? Ya, ya, I know, something French. Less than halfway through and they are comfortably marking the back – I guess someone has to do it. And they left real cars off the grid? Paul Truswell predicts the demise of the class.

Mike Petersen and Dale White get one by themselves this time, after sharing the Le Mans GT win with Alex Job Racing last year. And Corvette made it three of four classes for ALMS teams in 2004, along with three out of the past four years for themselves.

My carbon fiber valve is clicking along. I’m writing the Mid-Ohio Preview and I’ll be at Mid-Ohio to visit with friends and watch the racing; but I’ll not be doing any writing. That falls to “iron man” Russell Wittenberg, who agreed to “pinch hit” while I’m “down”. Thanks, Russell, you’re the best of the best.