That one day of practice wasn't especially encouraging for the Corvette crew. Early in the morning session, the No. 64 C5-R (Andy Pilgrim, Frank Freon, and Kelly Collins) experienced a steering gear problem and ended up sitting alongside the course for most of the four-hour session, awaiting a tow back to the garages. When the morning session ended, the ORECA-built Larbre Competition Viper GTS-R was the fastest GTS racer. While the C5-Rs had no real problems in the afternoon session, they didn't run as well as some had expected. The Speedlab No. 60 S7-R, with Terry Borcheller up, set fastest time in GTS with a hot lap of 3.54.448 (on an 8.45-mile long course!), followed by the Larbre Viper, and the Corvettes trailed the S7-R by about four seconds.
The LMP900 class (900kg minimum weight, 6.0L naturally-aspirated or 4.0L turbocharged, open cockpit prototype) Audi R8s, last year's overall winners, were again the fastest cars on track, period. The Cadillac Northstar LMP prototypes were back, drastically reworked from 2000, but looking relatively unchanged. Two venerable British marques had prototype racers entered: MG in the LMP675 category (for lighter-weight, smaller displacement, open-cockpit racers), and Bentley returned for the first time in years with a pair of absolutely stunning, dark British Racing Green with silver accents "EXP Speed 8" coupes in LM GTP (essentially identical to LMP900, with enclosed cockpits, slightly narrower tires, and slightly larger air restrictors which allow a little more power). At the bottom of the Le Mans race car hierarchy is the GT class, for production class racers, and long the domain of the 911 Porsches. There were 10 of the 911 GT3-R and -RS models entered-and one lone Callaway C12, looking both beautiful and menacing, and turning faster laps than most of the Porsches!
Program Manager Doug Fehan wasn't particularly concerned about the C5-Rs less-than-sterling times versus the Saleens and Vipers. "Everything went really well for Corvette racing. The new wing tested out very well and we're really excited about some new aero tweaks that worked out well, and we've got great power. Between now and the race in June, we've got to solve an electrical problem that we've chased all day. We've also had a suspension problem on the 64 car, which we remedied immediately. Both of these are probably the result of some shipping damage incurred on the way over from the US. We'll really go through this car and make sure there isn't anything else that might have been damaged them. Other than that, we had a pretty good test and we're looking forward to coming back next month."
Let The Show Begin...
On the surface, not much happened over the following five weeks. No race cars shattered the quiet of the French countryside. Which isn't to say that the teams weren't busy attending their charges, ensuring that the cars were as perfectly prepared as was humanly possible for THE race.
Then Le Mans sprang back to life on Monday and Tuesday, June 11th and 12th, for scrutineering (tech inspections) of all entrants in the 24-hour race. And it's literally the city that comes alive, as scrutineering is done at the Place des Jacobins, smack dab in the center of old Le Mans, with the 13th-century Gothic cathedral of St. Julien overlooking 48 of the finest and fastest road racers in the world while each is inspected from top to bottom. Each team also had to provide a crash test certificate (yes, a C5-R has been crashed and smashed in a laboratory to verify its crashworthiness!), and each driver demonstrated his ability to extract himself from the car, while behind the wheel and harnessed, in no more the 7 seconds. "Conformity" stickers are then applied (the Le Mans equivalent of a Good Housekeeping "Seal of Approval.") The final stop is, "Smile! Say cheese!" time for the official team (car, drivers, and crew) photographs.