SimHQ.com - Motorsports Zone - Feature: GT Legends

Delaney was momentarily unavailable, so the GULF Racing Team asked me to shake the car down while they sent somebody out to look for their absent Number 1 driver. Perhaps he was in the restaurant. On occasions he'd been seen in the company of a beautiful blond woman; "Lisa" who had tragically lost her husband in a terrible shunt at the Nürburgring.

As I sat in the car in the pits, the noise around me was deafening when the mechanics fired-up the engine. I blipped the throttle, and again the noise was unbelievable. Sheer power to command with my right foot! Accelerating out of the pitlane, I had wheelspin in first and second gears. Was there a bit in third as well? This was a signal that the V12 powerhouse behind me really was full of grunt and could do so much more than just sound nice.

Early practice laps served for me to get to grips with the car and the traffic. That is always a bit of a problem at Le Mans. In learning the braking points in one of these monsters, I was braking a bit early and several cars took the advantage in the corners. One or two slipped by at Tertre Rouge, only for me to quickly catch up to them again, in the high speed sections.

The closing rate in some cases is frightening as you scream down the straight and come up to another car. Only in the last few seconds before passing this car will you find out if it is a fast Porsche prototype, a medium-fast GT40, or a slower Corvette. You only finish the race and survive by making the right decision and then taking the right kind of passing action.

"When you're racing, it's life.
Anything that happens before or after is just waiting."

- Michael Delaney

The other cars have their optimum racing lines too. Going over the bumps in the road they jump quite a bit — as does my 917 — and you'll need to be constantly alert. If the car you are attempting to pass hasn't seen you and moves over as you start your passing, you'll need very quick reflexes to avoid hitting him. Yet you still need to keep your foot pressed down hard on the throttle. While avoiding contact in such situations you are taking great care not to yank the wheel so hard that you loose control and hammer into the Armco. Lifting is not an option.

The speed of the Porsche 917 is ferocious so it does not feel quite as dangerous or difficult to drive as several drivers from the era reported. Porsche have taken the ´69 monster and developed it into this fast, but slightly less vicious machine. It is mentally very demanding because it is only too easy to loose concentration and miss your braking point or mess-up your racing line. The corners on the almost 14 km long track just keep coming. They rush up at you with incredible speed.

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