WOW! Thanks for taking the time to tell us that story. It ranks right up there with Count Volpi's letters to FerrariChat. I'd love it if you told us the rest some day soon!
lmpdesigner, I'd love to hear your stories of how you started your career and about the design process, the other people involved, etc.
I also run www.ExperienceLeMans.com, mainly for the memorabilia but also list as much as the results as possible AND of course because I am freak for the 24 Hours and to be honest... I have NO reference on Roland under his on name either...
Oh, cool! Had no idea that was your site, though I've perused it quite a bit. Perhaps it was the 24 Heures Moto - here's the official site (for an official site, it doesn't dig as deep as one would hope, 'cause I can't find mention there, either) - http://www.lemans.org/24heuresmoto/live/pages/retro/index_gb.html - as he's indicated an impressive history on bikes and tracks far and wide. But, 24 Heures Moto only been around since 1978 - which would mean the 196x (if that info is correct) Le Mans win would have been in a car. So, maybe he was racing under a different name, or was a Team Owner. I'm still blown away by the fact there's all manner of champions on this site.
I've googled him in every possible way in relation to the 24 hours but NOTHING seems to link the name with the race... so... Roland... come out and tell us your Le Mans nick! Otherwise Wax and I will have to... uh... well... uh... ask you kindly? LOL!
Thx Wolfgang but that returns an "Andrew Linder"... All I keep finding is "two times Le Mans winner" and I even found 1 "three times le mans winner" but no entry... no result... no car... no team... at least not with "Roland Lindner"... Shoot I'm gonna PM Roland... I'm like Wax on this... Just can't stand it!
Just bombarded Roland via PM and email.... ;-) Also noticed that Roland was born in 1950 so that would exclude any Le Mans entires in the 1960's as otherwise he would have been the youngest Le mans winner ever and we would SURELY know that... wouldn't we?
Jack, don`t forget there are SEVERAL classes running the Le Mans 24 heurs - all in one race but different classes! I´m not sure if this is Rolands M3, but I believe Roland will happy enlight us Image Unavailable, Please Login
Wolfgang, do you know from which year that photo is? Was it taken at Le Mans? I have the results and entries for all classes going back as far as 1923 but no Roland Linder... :-( If that photo was taken at Le Mans (doesn't look like it but it could be, I'm not all-knowing) and we know the year, then the race number will tell us the drivers.
Went through all the Le Mans Entries post-1978 looking for race number 47 and these are the results found: 1981 - Ferrari 512 BB/LM 1983 - Porsche 956 1984 - Porsche 956 1986 - Rondeau M482 1991 - Cougar C26S 1993 - Porsche Carrera RSR 1994 - Honda NSX 1995 - Honda NSX Turbo GT1 1996 - Porsche 911 GT2 Evo 1997 - Lotus Elise GT1 1998 - Porsche 911 GT1 No BMW entered with that race number either in the race itself of pre-qualifying...
Wolfgang, Zolder would perfectly match Roland's origin. ARRRGGGGGGGGG! Can't stand it! Have to know the reason for being called "two times Le Mans winner" and not showing up in the results.
ANYTHING "Linder" + "Le Mans", "Team Linder" + "Le Mans"... Roland is being called "two times le mans winner" on various websites. It doesn't say in which capacity so I have an open mind... could be as team member, driver, owner... anything... Just curious about the reason. Don't get me wrong... I am not trying to disprove anything or so. Just trying to satify my curiosity...
So you want to hear about '85? Don't read it - it's too long! Sorry. Spice Engineering, a concern that was owned by Gordon Spice and Ray Bellm, had employed Jeff in 85 to turn things around, and he had done so remarkably quickly. The previous year their car had scarcely finished a race, but now it was dominant, thanks to Jeff and his passion for details. Around the factory he was know as The Ferret because he was in everything and poking about everywhere. I was more than flattered that he had called - everyone who had ever driven an ass and cart was trying to get in that car for that race. (Jeff went on to be the production manager for the McLaren F1 car - not the race car, the sports car.) I called around to the unit in Silverstone for a seat fitting, an ordeal that consists of you hanging off the steering wheel at the right height while two-part foam is poured into garbage bags under and behind you. The foam hardens very quickly, emitting a noxious gas as it does. Thanks to my spectacular luck the bag overflowed and the foam poured out onto the back of my head. Did I mention that the stuff was also used as an industrial adhesive? No? Well, it was, it is, and given its properties, probably always will be. They had to use an old hack saw blade to get my head (and the rest of me) free of the car. My next stop was a barber, one with power tools. The need for the seat arose from the fact that Ray Bellm was huge, I was average, and Gordon was compact or small, depending on who you were talking to. We would each take care of our own seat during a pit stop, and if it broke, well then, that was your problem. I ran in a CWP unit for the team at Silverstone and did a photo shoot with a couple of Hawaiian Tropic girls (one of the sponsors), and then a month or so later, we all met up again at Le Mans. Now, this was more like it. Gordon wafted up to the farm house they had rented in his Rolls, Ray came in a new turbo Bentley, various beautiful friends came in various beautiful cars and I got a lift from a local, having bummed a flight to Le Mans with a factory team who had rented a plane. The Spice was a hell of a lot nicer than the Dome to drive, it didnt wander and wish to commune with the scenery, it stopped, it turned, it did everything you wanted it do do, but it was heavy on the wrists. This year qualifying was easier, and there was a lot more of it. Jeff wanted fuel consumption tests and I was happy to do the driving, grinding around the circuit with various gear ratios and on various tire compounds. During one run I saw a Sauber closing on me between the Mulsanne kink and the hairpin, leaving me to wonder if I should give him room before the corner or let him find his own way around me after it. They were fast cars, powered by a Mercedes engine that sucked through fuel at an unbelievable rate. The paddock scuttlebutt was that they would try and lead and then go into economy mode after half an hour, their sponsorship goals having been attained. I glanced back to see how much ground he was making against the Spice and found that he had - disappeared! Gone! I sorted my braking out and looked again, just catching sight of the car as it crunched down on its nose cone, like a diver on a board hitting the surface of a frozen pond, and then it took off again, and then I had the hairpin to sort out and was gone. A lap later I spotted Chris Nielesen standing beside the shrapnel of his car. It was unbelievable that he was alive, forget walking about, but there he was. I must say, by early Saturday afternoon things were looking very good. It was then that the ACO sent a messenger to get me. I headed up to their headquarters on the other side of the circuit and was ushered in to see a busy official. Good morning Mr. Galvin. I have been reviewing the paperwork collected at scruttenering last Tuesday and just come across your medical form. It is something we dont recognize, it looks completely different from everyone elses. It's white, not brown. I can understand that, the only other Irish driver has his medical done in England and thus uses a Royal Automobile Club form; mine is the Royal IRISH Automobile Club International. As you can see it has been properly completed and signed. Im sorry Mr. Galvin but without a confirming telegram from your association - the RIAC? - I cannot accept this. If you get through to them please let me know, otherwise I hope you enjoy your stay and have a good time watching the race. Oh! Could you please notify your team that they should either find another qualified driver or confirm that they will be driving as a team of two? Thank you. He stood up to reach across the desk to shake my hand and end the meeting, and that was the end of that. Not. I knew at once what was going on. Our car had qualified well and there was some local driver who wanted a seat in it. He had personally qualified, but his car had broken down or been smashed up, and he wanted to be in the race. Someone had drawn the short straw for me, it was sort of being like back in FF1600 in Ireland. There was no point in trying to get a telegram out of the RIAC, it was a weekend so no one would be in, and even if they were in they would never get it together to reply properly by 3:30 pm. If they were in, and they did reply, it would be to state that their paperwork was what it was and that the French should go and....... Well, you get my drift. Back out into the heat of the day the place was chaos. People were running everywhere trying to get last minute bits and pieces for their cars, journalists were doing interviews under trees, and officials wearing vests were yelling at each other, at the journalists, and at the trees for want of better targets. Tell the team? I wasnt going to be the bearer of bad news, at least not immediately. Tell them that their race was going to be screwed because I hadnt provided a suitable piece of paper? Jeff would be furious, Gordon and Ray would kill me. Looking at the problem sideways all that was missing was just a piece of paper, not a deed or a measurement, just another colored document, so to fix everything all I had to do was give them their little brown colored document. Without further ado I headed back to the AOCs field office on my side of the tracks. With all the officials running about the actual building was surprisingly empty. Out of the five or six desks only one was occupied, and the woman at it was so engrossed in producing some document from a typewriter that she never looked up as I made my way past. I was relived to see that there was no sign of an ACO vest or uniform, and if she wasnt wearing one then probably neither were most of her coworkers. I glanced about for some sign of red cross bureaucracy and then, over by the corner, I saw a formica plaque that read Medical in white letters against a black background, and best of all the desk below it was wonderfully unoccupied. I sat down and opened up all the drawers, finding a pile of blank medical forms of every nature, and, finally, a few of the drivers sort, the ones that were so dearly loved by the ACO bureaucracy. I filled one in quickly and then I levered a picture out of my A.A. International permit and stapled it to the form. I looked around for stamps so that I could frank the thing and for once my luck held. The chief medical officers stamp was on the desktop, along with an ink pad, so I franked the association column, franked my picture for good luck, tidied up, pushed back from the desk and walked out, passing a load of incoming people as I left. No one had even looked at me. The next stop was the first aid tent. The doctor in charge was without a patient and we had gotten on when we had first met at the drivers briefing. She was about 55, sharp as a tack, and had a good sense of humor, but while she didnt throw me out of the tent it still took a bit of an effort persuaded her to sign the certificate, a deed she performed while looking both put-upon and amused. Had she known that the ACO hadnt issued me the document in the first place I think the amusement would have died rather rapidly, but the fact that I had walked rather than being carried, had the paperwork issued by her boss and was smiling a lot got the job done. Just. After that it was simple. A trip back to the main ACO building, a few minutes of bluster and bulls**t with the secretary about presenting the wrong document - entirely my fault - and everyone shook hands as the little misunderstanding went away. Would they check up on the doctor who had signed it? With that much shouting going on? With all their doctors volunteers? Read a doctors signature? Good luck. Gordon who did the start made up a few places during his stint. Both he and Ray were very good drivers, but of the two he had the much better feel for the car. My turn came soon enough. The Spice had a DFV in it, fresh for the race, and like all DFVs it would not run below 3,000 rpm. If you took your foot off the throttle the engine would go from a rattling shriek to dead silence instantly, there was a tiny clutch plate and thus no flywheel effect, and with a crank throw about as deep as the average cork screw, there was also little reciprocating inertia from the guts of the motor to keep things running. On top of that the clutch throw bearing had a life of 13 seconds when depressed, so pulling out of the pits was interesting, particularly with various marshals waving you down. If they wanted to let someone else out first or inspect some part of the car you were better off kicking the thing back into neutral and waiting it out. The same was true when you came to the new light system at the end of the pit lane. Once out into the race it was great. The car pulled strongly, the gear box was smooth and the traffic well defined. Of the eighteen other cars in the C2 class there were only seven to worry about. So what do you think about when youre driving at Le Mans? You dont think. Your whole mind and concentration is totally on the task at hand, in fact you are so busy concentrating there is almost no mental energy left over to remember the event. Thats why pit crews hold out signs giving you your lap time, your place, and the number of laps left during your stint. If they didnt all the drivers would keep going until they ran out of gas, unless their car was equipped with a gas gauge and looking at it became part of their driving pattern. Sometimes something so unusual happens that you do remember it. I was pulling a dawn shift when the sun came out, and as the earth started to warm, small pockets of mist formed in the undulations of the circuit. Driving down the Mulsanne, and again down to Indianapolis, you would see a road like a Chinese dragon, hump backs sticking out of a white sea of mist, and then you would dive down into a pocket and see nothing at all, and you would hope and pray that no one had broken down and was parked right where you were going. If someone had, it was all over for both of you. That lasted only about two laps, or less than eight minuets, for the charging cars ripped the mist to rags and then the sun burnt away the wandering shreds, which made it time to focus again. The two Mazdas that were leading the class had a spot of gearbox bother and ended up well behind us, which took the pressure off in the last few hours. There was a rumor that our engine was failing, but it was untrue. We just backed off to make sure nothing bad happened, remembering that it wasn't the number of laps done that made a win, just the fact that the car was still in front and moving when the clock hit the twenty four hour mark. Come to think of it there is a piston out of the thing that Ray's father gave to me, it is somewhere in the basement and is in sound condition, ready to be built into a new engine and do another race. The only disappointment was that due to the crowds I couldn't get up to the podium. Gordon Spice felt really badly about it for the same thing had happened to him a few years earlier when he had finished 3rd overall, but the bottom line was the just short of four years from starting I had a finish at Le Mans, and a class win thrown in to boot which was a hell of a lot more than I expected or deserved. A couple of friends had come from Ireland to watch, so I thumbed a lift off them down to the South of France; it was wonderful to have someone else do all the driving. I turned 30 the next weekend. Kram - a.k.a. the post-hog.
The way Roland drives, I have no doubt he has experience! As for his Le Mans history? I have heard him mention Le Mans many times during conversations. He is even sited in publications as a Le Mans champion, and was billed during the Scuderia Rampage as a Le Mans winner, a fact I was led to believe through personal correspondence between him and I, and statements made here on Ferrari Chat. Perhaps youre looking in the wrong places. I recall many conversations in which he has mentioned some sort of affiliation with Porsche (Driver or Tester). Perhaps you should try looking in that direction. I also understand he raced motors too. Im sure all those corrective surgeries he is going through now are the result of his racing career, I have met his wife and although Im sure she carries a big stick I dont believe she is responsible for all that damage. lol Happy searching, hope this helps.
Dont like them. The straight, for a driver, was paradoxically a place to relax, check the gauges, sort your self for another lap and easily overtake the slow boys. For the spectator it was an amazing place to watch cars, as I found out myself on my first visit to Le Mans. I think they were mad to chop up the longest straight in motor racing for - well, for what? Seeing cars tiptoe through chichanes is dull. Safety? Take up knitting.
from a fan's standpoint i say AMEN BROTHER! I HATE 'em. Had a slight running argument a while ago from a Euro fchatter who likes 'em for safety reasons....
