What to do after winning the Le Mans 24 Hours?

Cool!

 

This reminds me of Jacques Swaters, when he and his team drove their 250 GTO's (s/n 4153 GT and 4293 GT) back to Belgium after the 1963 Le Mans 24 Hours race. During a dinner they decided to celebrate the 2nd OA position of 4293 GT, and they drove the 250 GTO's into the city center of Paris and parked the cars on the street. Leaving back the morning thereafter.

 

I ran no. 0010M for about five years from '85 - '90 in various CSRG, HMSA, and VMR events at Sears Pt and Laguna Seca and always drove to and from the events. I only brought what would fit on the passenger side and around the fuel tank in the back. It seemed like the proper way to go racing. I also drove the car on tour events and as a weekend sports car, great fun.

On one occasion a CHP pulled over coming home from a race weekend at Sears Pt and held me up for over an hour. He wrote me up for no front plate, no side mirrors, horn not loud enough, and best of all no windshield wipers! He told me to fix it, sell it, or scrap it and sell off the parts. - George

no. 0010M - Partial results:
49 2nd OA Mille Miglia - Bonetto/Carpani
49 dnf Le Mans - Lucas/Dreyfus
49 1st OA 24h Spa - Chinneti/Lucas
49 8th OA GP Auto Club France - Chinetti/Selsden
50 4th OA Bridgehampton - Kimberly
50 1st OA Studebaker Proving Grounds - Kimberly #1
50 1st OA Elkhart Lake - Kimberly
50 4th OA Watkins Glen - Kimberly
50 1st Palm Springs - Kimberly
50 2nd/1st IC 6h Sam Collier Memorial race, Sebring -Kimberly/Lewis
51 1st Palm Springs - Lewis
51 6th Del Monte Handicap race, Monterey - Kimberly
51 crashed in 3rd position Pebble Beach Cup, Monterey - Kimberly

Some events I did:
86 Monterey Historics
87 Mille Miglia
87 Monterey Historics
88 Mille Miglia
89 Monterey Historics

 

Great story! One more reason to absolutely despise the CHP...

 

He was the exception. I've actually had extreme luck with the fairness of the CHP and tend to generally hold them in high regard. I've had a few bad experiences but many good ones. Another CHP officer signed off the ticket without seeing the car. He told me that the guy was one who had "chronic bad days" and was not a lot of fun to be around.

I do not want to direct this post OT. Much more fun to talk about the times when it was common for race cars to be driven to events!

 

This reminds me the story Monsieur Jacques Swaters told me several times, when he took delivery of his F500 #208 at the factory in Maranello and took it back without lights, licence plate and even road papers to Belgium with more than 1100 Kilometers, and race it the same weekend to second place in race ...... (with a race car F2)

It was indeed normal finishing a race and driving back the racecar on normal roads.

(You see Michael driving his 248F1 from Maranello to Kerpen in weekend on normal roads ???????)

Always love Jacques telling me his stories, and hope he will tell them to me for years.

 

I think that a race series requiring the cars to be road legal and registered, and perhaps even driven some distance to the track would be a really cool thing.

Is there anything like that now?

 

I still drive to and from the track, and occasionally a few others do as well. I've not heard of a series that "requires" it.

 

WRC cars still work this way sort of.

Note the license plates:

http://www.227sport.com/images/focus%202.jpg

http://www.227sport.com/images/WRC%20Focus%20cornering.jpg

The cars aren't necessarily driven to the track, but they are required to be driven on public roadways in between the stages of the race.

Marcus Gronholm actually had to drop out of Wales Rally Great Britain last year because he was stopped by the local police for an unsafe vehicle. He had hit a tree stump and damaged his 206's steering during stage 3. He completed the stage losing a total of 13 minutes, but was forced to retire when police prevented him from driving the 63km liaison section back to service.

>8^)
ER

 

I'd bet if this was in Italy the police would have given him a high speed escort!

 

didnt he only have three wheels left on the car at the time?

Englands police may be quite forgiving at times....but not that much!

 

I believe the wheel was still attached but the steering linkage was broken. He was trying to carefully limp it along and they forced him to be towed.

>8^)
ER