No. 63's pilots (left-right)...
No. 63's pilots (left-right) Ron Fellows, Johnny O'Connell, and Scott Pruett in the traditional Drivers' Parade. That's the 13th century cathedral of St. Julien in the background.
Daimler/Chrysler, in addition to hemorrhaging red ink in its US operations, changed its emphasis in road racing for the '01 racing season. The familiar and fearsome red ORECA Vipers would no longer be competing against the C5-Rs in the American Le Mans Series, at the Rolex/Daytona 24-hour race, or at Le Mans. Instead, ORECA would field open-cockpit Chrysler-Mopar LMP 900 prototypes and go head-to-head with the dominant Audi R8s. ORECA would continue to build GTS-Rs for customers, but there would be no more direct factory involvement in the Viper camp. The second-gen C5-Rs would continue to receive evolutionary improvements, but there wouldn't be a new and/or different C5-R. The real unknown for 2001 would be the Saleen S7-R (see Driver's Seat, July '01 and "Sorrow in Sebring," Aug. '01), a thinly disguised prototype racer, financed by Steve Saleen and his backers, engineered and constructed by English race car builder Ray Mallock LLC, and based on an as-yet-to-be-built, supposedly road-going supercar.
The C5-Rs more than amply proved their mettle-and their ability to withstand 24 hours of solid racing-by decisively taking an overall win at the Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona early this year. A few weeks later the factory racers again strutted their stuff in the ALMS season opener (Daytona is sanctioned by a different racing organization) by winning the GTS class at Texas Motor Speedway, scene of the C5-R's first-ever victory. Then, at Sebring, the Corvettes got whupped by Steve Saleen's S7-R funnycar, in its first public outing. In many respects, the Corvette team beat itself with a series of minor miscues and several instances of plain ol' bad racing luck. Regardless, the Saleen racer acquitted itself very respectably and was very fast-not good signs for the Corvettes.
Next on the schedule after Sebring was THE race-Le Mans. The C5-R Corvettes were assured an invitation from the ACO (Automobile Club de l'Ouest, the organizing/sanctioning body for Le Mans), because of their performances in the 2000 race and victories in the ALMS.
An unknown C5-R fan built...
An unknown C5-R fan built this exceptionally well-detailed replica of no. 64, and placed it on the roof of the real thing Saturday afternoon, while the cars were staged in pre-grid. Note the rain drops on the roof of no.64-an omen for most of the next 24 hours.
Much like the Indy 500, Le Mans is spectacle and ceremony, with a race thrown in for good measure. At Indy, the entire month of May is occupied with race-related activities, gradually and inexorably leading up to the 500-miler that's traditionally held on Memorial Day weekend. At Le Mans, the ritual is drawn out even longer, with the "preliminaries" beginning in early May (Sunday the 6th, this year) for a race that'll be conducted in mid-June (Saturday and Sunday, the 16th and 17th), with the first sessions of preliminary practice.
Leading up to that first official practice, most of the speculation centered on the GTS class. True, Team ORECA would not be directly contesting GTS with their big bad red Vipers, promoting (in the minds of many) the C5-Rs from challengers to favorites. But there would be four "privateer" GTS-Rs entered. Plus, four of the Saleen S7-Rs were signed up: the Konrad car that had won at Sebring, a pair of Saleen-Allen Speedlab (i.e. factory) cars, and an entry from an English team, RML, which just happened to be the S7-R's designer/builder, Ray Mallock Limited (one Speedlab entry was withdrawn before the pre-lim practices started). Three S7-Rs and four Vipers against two Corvettes. Those odds sounded kinda like Custer versus the Sioux and Cheyenne nations back in 1876.