Le Mans lunacy

[Shug]

Remembered this video while grabbing some lunch. This is a film of Mark Blundell (he could actually drive, before he started mangling English on TV) setting the pole lap in 1990 in a totally insane 1000hp Nissan Group C car. Worth pointing out that pole this year was in the region of 3:12 - more than 10 secs faster than this vid - watch the video below from about 2 min 30 to get the full in-car lap. If you've ever driven on track, you'll get to the end with a very dry mouth...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lMItc4cy8U

Then tell me that endurance racing is for old men and amateurs

[robin]

Wow. First of all, that car is fast - it's like watching speeded up video down the longer straights!! Secondly, he has got some balls ...

Thanks for posting the link!

Cheers,
Robin

[Shug]

Yup - it reached 229 mph on the Mulsanne with the chicanes!

[Andy G]

awesome

[mckeann]

Looks like great fun. The section after Arnage was unbelievable, i struggled to focus on the track.


I must admit, i did find this years race quite boring to watch, until they showed the incar footage, and how much the cars moved about. They just dont look that fast from outside.

[graeme]

Nice find Shug.

We watched this year's 2nd qually session (thursday?) from the Porsche Curves (the start of the section after Arnage). 170mph through there. Totally agree the in-car footage was spectacular - mind boggling in fact.

[Shug]

(@ Neil) Agree mate, It's not much of a spectacle on TV - I watched the coverage to get the placings and when I wasn't near Sky TV, I had the timing & scoring live on a laptop with the Radio Le Mans commentary - that was almost as good.

When you're there though... Nothing prepares you for the violence of seeing a car slamming down into Indianapolis in the middle of the night - brakes on fire and sparks flying from the undertrays

You may have guessed, I quite like Le Mans...

[steve_weegie]

Brilliant video! Dont know how fast he was going with approaching half a turn of lock on, but it looked pretty fast

[meatball]

That car looks nice and easy to drive......NOT!

[Matelotman]

Imagine thundering down the straights like that and missing your braking marker.......

[Lazydonkey]

That car looks nice and easy to drive......NOT!

[rossybee]

the 53 sec mark on the vid is where I spent most of the race

[dlogan]

Without even looking at the vid I assume thats about Tertre Rouge, which is the location of the Stella Bar?

[rossybee]

Without even looking at the vid I assume thats about Tertre Rouge, which is the location of the Stella Bar?