One hour to go, and all is wet

Barring acts of God or intercession by the French government, Audi is poised to win its sixth 24 Hours of Le Mans. The No. 1 R10 with Marco Werner in the driver's seat has a six-lap advantage over the following Peugeot 907 HDi, with Sebastien Bourdais driving.

The rain is coming down hard now, and the field is pretty much frozen into a wet parade. Third-place LMP1 should be the Pescarolo driven by Emmanuel Collard. In LMP2 it's Binnie Motorsports Lola Zytek by miles over the No. 33 Zytek driven by Adrian Fernandez. In GT1, David Brabham is leading in the Works Aston Martin 009, but Ron Fellows is chasing in the No. 63 Corvette; Fellows will probably run out of time. In GT2, it's the Porsche 997 GT3 GTR driven by Factory driver Patrick Long.

Comments

[Megan]

Car racing should be outlawed because of our shortages and expense of gasoline. Gasoline should not be used for car racing anymore. Noise pollution from this type of sport should be outlawed too. The air pollution is causing is unspeakable....

[Jamie De Pould]

Isn't the Peugeot a 908?

[BillyT]

Megan, if you are so against auto racing, why are you reading an AUTO RACING blog? That makes you a flamer and your post pointless. I would also add to your comment, then, that flamer comments are a waste of electricity, leading to the demise of mankind, and not to mention the Internet noise pollution from such useless rhetoric....

[Dave Lackey]

All you have said is perfectly correct, Megan. And quite true. It would be better for the planet.

But if these gentlemen and young ladies don't race at Le Mans, they will race on the streets, where they might T-bone codgers like me, as I am now the same age as Road and Track.

At least at Le Mans, the guys and gals are all going in the same direction, at least about 99% of the time. Some spins, I would expect.

Nearest I ever got to Le Mans physically I was in the most rattle trap Volvo one could ever imagine

So give 'em a Cheer, and let 'em sleep for a week

No loss at Le Mans, this day?

That would be my wish

And, who was the winner, again, I forget

Dave

[BillyT]

Megan,

what would actually make a difference for the better to the environment would be if YOU get out of your luxo boat SUV. Or at least stuff three friends in it for the carpool.

And yes I can confidently say YOUR SUV because statistically that's what you more likely than not drive if you live in LA....

to condemn Le Mans on a Le Mans blog and not mention 99,999 other things that more relevantly save the environment smells like the words of a flamer.

[Barry K. Nathan]

Megan, I think you would have a point if this was something like NASCAR, where they're still using leaded gasoline (!) and (as far as I know, at least) it's not getting much, if any, use as a testbed for new technologies.

However, in this particular race, Audi and Peugeot were testing diesel emissions control equipment which (at least in Audi's case) will allow clean, fuel-efficiet diesel cars to be sold in California in the next couple of years. And that will save *much* more fuel than was wasted in this race. Not to mention, these diesel cars will also emit less CO2 per mile than comparable gasoline-powered cars.

[Tom A.]

Megan,

As folks of my generation are fond of saying, "PWND!"

And while NASCAR has recently switched to using unleaded fuel, that form of racing's irrelevance is increasing by the day, what with the sanctioning body's insistence on technologies (like carburetors and 4-speed manual transmissions) that disappeared from even heavy duty trucks ages ago, the near-invincibility of the Chevrolet teams (Hendrick Motorsports in particular) despite the rulemakers' fanatical efforts at boosting "parity" and, in turn, the quality of "the show," and, of course, NASCAR's outrageous $100 million lawsuit against AT&T, claiming that their SEC- and FCC-approved purchase of Cingular Wireless (and subsequent push to put their logo on Jeff Burton's #31 car) is an attempt at undermining series sponsor Nextel (which of course was itself bought out by Sprint) and a breach of the contract that "grandfathered" Cingular and Alltel into being legal.

So if you absolutely have to attack motor racing for whatever hypocritical, jingoistic or just plain ignorant reason, can't you at least limit your diatribes to the one series that seems to care nothing about the future of automotive technology, the environment or anything other than the almighty dollar? If not, then I strongly suggest you take your "tie dye & trailmix" agenda to a place where it will be appreciated, i.e. a place where common sense and respect for other people's ideas and interests are foreign concepts.

[Lance]

Megan,

Instead of thinking of racing (particularly high level racing like F1, Le Mans, MotoGP, etc.) as wasteful, think of it as free-market sponsored R&D into fuel efficiency. Just about every top notch race series is limiting fuel usage year after year, forcing teams to develop ever more efficient engines. It was FUEL EFFICIENCY as much as outright speed that brought AUDI so many wins at Le Mans. These developments end up in the engines we drive on the streeet 2-5 years down the road.

Would you rather have your TAX DOLLARS be used for research or would you rather have a corporate sponsor take care of that for you!