Daytona, Indianapolis, Monaco, Le Mans. Names of places, names of races. And much more. For enthusiasts, attending the Daytona 500, Indy 500, Monaco Grand Prix, or 24 Heures du Mans is the ultimate spectating experience, and a win at one of these races is the Holy Grail of auto racing. These are not just races, they're pilgrimages for the faithful. For true believers, going to Indy or Le Mans is more than going to a race, it's coming into contact with and being at the site of greatness.
Going to Daytona, Indy, Monaco, or Le Mans is also being in the midst of a hellacious celebration, a race car carnival, a bash that is, in its own way, every bit as raucous and riotous as a Super Bowl game. In other words, an adrenaline rush, a chance to party, to yell and scream for your favorite driver or team, maybe get a little stupid in the company of like-minded friends, and see, feel, hear, savor, some damned fine auto racing.
For racing zealots whose preference runs to full-bodied prototypes or production (or, at least, production-based) sports cars on road courses, the annual 24 Hours of Le Mans is the race. The race has been run annually (except for 1936, when the race was cancelled, and again from 1940 through 1948 thanks to WWII) since 1923 on an immense circuit just to the south of the Loire Valley industrial city of Le Mans. It's grueling in every respect. Racing for a full 24 hours puts a terrible toll on the machines. The crews have to be on alert for the duration, grabbing naps when and where they can. And the drivers put in several multi-hour shifts behind the wheel, spread through an entire day-to-night-to-day cycle-on an 8.45-mile long racing circuit, which is about three times the length of the average course, and one that is still made up in part by two-lane country roads. There's nothing else quite like Le Mans for pushing the endurance of man and machine to their limits-and beyond. Just finishing is an accomplishment to be proud of, and a win-in class or, of course, overall-is prestigious to the extreme.
Corvettes are certainly not strangers at the Circuit de l'Sarthe, starting with Briggs Cunningham's three car effort in 1960, but last year's C5-R invasion marked the first time there was open and direct factory participation in this classic enduro. The C5-R's Le Mans debut was encouraging and quite respectable, with one placing third in the GTS class behind two of the Chrysler-backed ORECA Viper GTS-Rs. It was as good as anyone at GM Racing dared hope for-the C5-Rs were only part way into their second season of competition and still running the original "narrow track" (i.e., essentially stock C5 width) chassis, while the ORECA Vipers had already won the GTS class three straight times in France.
The new wider-bodied, wide-track chassis C5-Rs (built to the limits of the class regulations, rather than to factory specs) debuted later last summer and quickly proved to be highly competitive with the Vipers. In a promising first outing, at Mosport, the "new" C5-R was edged out of a victory over the all-conquering Vipers by mere fractions of a second, and followed that up by severely thrashing the Vipers in Texas and with a hard fought victory in the Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta. The Vipers, in turn, avenged those losses with end-of-the-season victories at Laguna Seca and Las Vegas. It was some utterly superb racing, regardless of which "side" you were on.