What It Takes To Win At LeMans

Corvettes on the starting grid at LeMans, 1960. 

A friend lent me The Quest, the story of the rediscovery and restoration of one of the Corvettes that ran at LeMans in 1960.  I enjoyed it, and recommend the DVD to those who are interested in the sleuthing that goes into finding, authenticating, and restoring old race cars.

I well-remember the white-and-blue LeMans Corvettes from my youth.  I was thrilled that Briggs Cunningham was taking another shot at LeMans, representing the U.S.  As it turned out, this shot was his last.  He had tried to win LeMans several times early in the 1950's, in Cadillacs (!) and his own Cunningham sports cars, with results ranging from dismal to coming up just short.  His relationship with General Motors was arm's-length.  The LeMans Corvettes were his idea, not GM's.  No doubt, when Cunningham called Detroit, someone picked up the phone.  And Zora Arkus Duntov, Corvette's Chief Engineer, was at LeMans  in 1960--as a guest.  But GM's official policy was that it did not engage in or support racing.  Besides, GM knew nothing about LeMans.  Cunningham did.  The nearly stock cars were prepared at Cunningham's garage in Florida.

The Corvettes did poorly: 3 DNF's, with a class win by a whisker with an ailing car.  Their basic problem was that their drum brakes couldn't take the punishment LeMans handed out--especially compared to disc-braked competitors.  True enough, as the The Quest says, the sole remaining Corvette won its over-3-liter GT class--because it was the only car still running in its class.  It finished 8th overall.  But Ferrari 250GT SWB's finished 4th, 5th, 6th, and 7th, and won the 3-liter GT class.  It was my introduction to just how hard it is to win LeMans.  In your class, never mind in your  category, or overall.

A Cobra roadster won its over-3-liter class in 1963--but finished behind the 3-liter Ferrari GTO's.  Only when Pete Brock's sleek body turned the Cobra into a coupe in 1964 was it able to beat the 3-liter Ferrari GT's.  It took a purpose-built racing car, a huge budget, and 3 years of trying, for Ford to win LeMans overall in 1966.  By then, national racing colors like the Corvettes' white/blue were a thing of the past.

Corvette has won its class at LeMans for several years now in the modern era with a "whatever it takes" approach like Ford's 40 years earlier.  And, to put a period on it, when the GT-1 class went away, Corvette built a completely new, production-based, car--and won again.

Corvette C6-R GT race car in the paddock at Road Atlanta: the product of 13 years of experience and development.