The Great Gunnar Racing Saga: 24 Hours du Mans 2000 (cont.)

All of the pre-race prep was going okay, when Kevin called and said we got a new sponsor, Warner Vision France, and he was going to HAVE to fly the Concorde over on Saturday, so he could get the car decaled up for the new sponsor. We all thought this business of him HAVING to fly the Concorde sounded a little fishy, but I told him I’d be there to get him.� I made my first trip to the circuit Saturday morning, to pick up our credentials.� The schedule said registration opened at 9 AM, so I got there at 10:30 AM.� Low and behold, they weren’t ready yet, and might be ready later in the day.� I did get to go inside the track, to look around.� I could not believe the size of some of the hospitality setups that some of the teams had.� Now remember, this was only for the teams and press, general hospitality was elsewhere.� Audi built a freestanding, 120 ft X 80 ft restaurant, with china, crystal, and place cards for each of the mechanics, and 10 motor scooters for the press to use.� GM had a 2-story deal, but theirs was out of prefab units, stacked and combined together.� VW was constructing a 4 story “hotel” for their executives (un-necessary, as the cars fell out before dark), capable of sleeping about 60.� I guess, all it takes is money.� After that, I went and got Kevin.

Audi hospitality "restaurant" for crew and press.	Kevin, during one of the eighteen hours he spent putting decals on the race car and the VW Beetle.
Gunnar Racing Team after passing scrutineering on Monday.

Now doing the decals on one car in a day is one thing, but Kevin also had to decorate the Beetle to look like the racecar (part of the marketing deal).� I made the first of many trips to pick people up, when I drove in to get Kevin in Paris.� Luckily, I had made arrangements for everyone else to come in on the TGV (bullet train) from Paris to Le Mans, (but that wouldn’t work out quite right, either).� Kevin got an early start on Sunday (6 AM French time, 12 Midnight US time), and decaled until about 8 PM, and only had a few more hours worth of work to do. �He stopped when all of the rest of us wanted to get dinner.� Sharon, Gunnar, Ben, Jesea, and Jaime all arrived Sunday evening (TGV from Paris), and I made the first of 12 trips to the train station, to get them.� Two car loads later, (they had all of the crew uniforms, and other last minute equipment with them), we were ready to go rescue Kevin.

Sunday night was when we moved into the Chateau, which is where we had stayed for the test in April.� We had been staying in a hotel up to that point.� It was a very nice, older place, with beautiful roses outside, and it even had showers and toilets in each room.� We enjoyed our last showers on Sunday morning, as we knew we were going to be taking “bashows” from here on out, (bathtub with a shower sprayer on a hose, like in a motor home).� It was more comfortable coming into the chateau this time, as we were coming into a “familiar” place.�

Scrutineering happens on Monday and Tuesday, in the middle of downtown Le Mans.� Monday was crazy, as it was some sort of French holiday, (they seem to take a lot of those in May and June).� There must have been 15,000-20,000 people milling around.� They even had grand stands built, for people to sit in and watch the proceedings.� Our assigned time to go through put us 5^th on the list, with only the four Cadillac LMP’s ahead of us.� This turned out to be quite an honor, as some of the other teams we were friends with went through on Tuesday, and there was nary a sole around (I had to take Lauer there on Tuesday, as he was late getting in due to business). The curse of the trains almost got us, as Michael and Jennifer Brockmans train barely got them in on time, and we almost lost our spot in line waiting for them to fight the traffic coming from the station.� Nobody expected this kind of a turn out for tech inspection,� totally mind boggeling.� Tech went well, with only a couple of small fixes to do at the track.� From there you get put into a large fenced area where they take the team photo that goes into the books.� I had always dreamed of being in one of those photo’s, (of course, in the dreams, it was as a Porsche factory driver), but at least I was there, with a Porsche team, with friends.

Gunnar, after doing a 4:22.9, in Thursday night qualifying, on his last lap, moving us into 47th on the grid, from 48th	Michael Brockman signing an autograph at the hospital for crippled and handicapped children. The Beetle to be raffled is in the background.
"Crazy RC Car Guy", dancing with the belly dancers, in the parade, on Friday evening.

Tuesday was a hang out day, except for getting Michael Lauer checked in at tech, quite an easy day.� We ended up celebrating Kevin’s birthday (turned 47) Tuesday evening, as it had been when most of us were out of town.� Boy was he surprised when we brought out a cake, with ice cream and candles.

Wednesday was to be the first day of practice/qualifying, at 7PM.� I went to the team managers meeting (my name was still on some of the paperwork as team manager), with Walter Gerber (our crew chief) and Alex Job (the official team manager) on Wednesday morning.� Boy was it like a circus.� A couple of the officials could speak English, but others couldn’t.� They had trouble answering some of the questions they were asked, and got into a shouting match with Henri Pescarolo about one of the rules.� They said, finally, it had been changed, and we would get the information later that day (but we never did).� The two 2 hour qualifying sessions went well, with Gunnar the fastest, but the other guys making strides over what they had done in April.� We were classified in 48^th, of 48, but that wasn’t a big deal to us.� We were running at Le Mans, that’s what mattered.�

Thursday was quite a bit busier, as we changed the engine and gearbox, and I made 4 trips to the train station looking for one of our guys, named Roger.� He finally made it to the track some time Thursday afternoon after he had been diverted through Madrid, due to bad weather, then on some puddle jumper to France (his luggage wasn’t as lucky, it got there on Friday).� The guys seemed more comfortable on Thursday evening, after solving some electronic gremlins with the new engine.� Towards the end of qualifying session 4, (about 11:45 PM), Gunnar said he was ready to come in.� His best time at that point was in the 4:25 range.� Walter told him to stay out, so we could check on fuel consumption.� Gunnar did a 4:22.9, on his last lap, at 11:58 PM, to move us up into 47^th starting position, while Lauer and Brockman both broke 4:30, getting us comfortably below the 110% rule for our class (the pole car did a 4:09, and all drivers must be within 110% of that time to make the race).� The first major hurdle had been cleared.� Martin, Gunnar, Todd, Ben, Francois, Fabienne, myself, and Lydia (she helped with the raffle) had a promo to do at a “Discotheque” downtown, so we didn’t make it home until 4am.� In the States we call them Night Clubs, or just Clubs.� I had never been to a real “Disco” before.� It was exactly what I expected, pretty cheesy, to say the least. Drinks cost 60 francs (about $10), a little too costly for my wallet.� We did end up each getting a pair of Le Mans 24 Hours, embroidered, women’s panties, from the owner of the disco, so not all was lost.

Drivers group photo; Gunnar is 5th from the right, on the 4th row.	Ben, with the car, on the front stretch, before the start. (2:34 pm)
Our very "refreshed" Gunnar Racing crew, at 2:24 am, Sunday morning

� The object of raffling the VW Beetle was to raise money for charity of choice of the SEM (French motor sport governing body), and they chose a hospital for handicapped and crippled children.� We took the drivers and the Beetle there on Friday morning.� It gave me a nice feeling to see who was benefiting from this promotion.� Michael Lauer was so moved, he made a $10,000 donation, on the spot.� The kids were so excited to see the drivers; they must have signed 100 autographs each.� This whole autograph thing was new to Gunnar, and he sure signed a lot of them over the week in France.� Later that afternoon was to be the big drivers parade downtown.� Boy was it impressive, the amount of people who show up for this thing is mind numbing.� The people lined the streets 5 to 10 deep on the parade route, at least at the start.� The guys climbed into an old Bentley, (classic cars were supplied for all of the drivers), and off they went.� Sharon, Richard, Suzanne, and I enjoyed the show from the staging area, and boy was it a show.� They had belly dancers, marching bands, and the Hawaiian Tropic girls.� There was also this strange Oriental guy, in a dirty driving suit, a helmet, goggles, gloves, and an RC car.� He was the “Crazy RC car guy”.� He would run up to all of the drivers, and have them sign his suit, and he and the car danced with the belly dancers.� Pretty crazy.

We got to the circuit a little early Saturday (6 am), trying to avoid the traffic.� We did, by about two hours.� The race starts so late over there (4 pm), you go through an entire normal day, before the race even starts.� There was a Ferrari Maserati historic challenge race at 10:15 AM, with a mock traditional Le Mans running start.� There had to have been about 45 cars, impressive field.� After that, they had a Jaguar/MG/Bentley clubs did some parade laps.� We wheeled the car out onto the front stretch about 12:45 PM, and pit the German flag over it (Manthey Racing, our official entrant name, is a German team).� Gunnar went to do the drivers group photo, and we all hung out, waiting for the race to begin.� The cars moved away for a recon lap at 3:25PM, then stopped on the grid until the pace lap began at 3:47 PM.� Gunnar radioed in that the start of the movie “Le Mans” was running through his head, when you can hear all of the drivers hearts beating, before the race began.� A few of us were thinking the same thing.

The race went pretty smoothly.� Gunnar pulled two double stints during the night, turning his fastest lap (a 4:20.2) at about 5:40 AM, while running in a three-car train with Dirk Muller (from Dick Barbour Racing), and Johnny Mowlem (from Skea Racing).� The first time we had to do anything besides fuel, tires, and a driver’s change, was at 7:40 AM, when we brought Lauer in to change the brake pads.� The next adventure was at 11:00 AM, when we had to remove the spark plug, and fuel injector from the #1 cylinder.� It seems the cylinder had cracked during the race, and we were losing a little water.� The Porsche technicians told us we wouldn’t hurt the engine if we ran it on 5 cylinders.� To be classified as finisher for Le Mans, you must run 70% of the laps that the winning car runs.� We got Todd, our computer guy; to figure out how many laps we would need to run, to be classified.

Our car finishing the race, (I'm in the yellow hat).

Our rookie driver squad (l-r): Michael Brockman, Gunnar Jeannette, and Michael Lauer.

Finishing was very important for us, for many reasons.� First, Gunnar would be the youngest driver ever to finish the race.� Second, we had an all rookie team of drivers.� Third, we would get an invite to the test next year for Le Mans pre-qualifying, thus making it easier to come back next year.� Todd determined that we needed to run 260 laps to be classified, so that was how many we would run.� Gunnar went back out on 5 cylinders, and did 18 laps.� He then handed it over to Brockman, who went out and did the same.� At about 1:45 PM, we reached 259 laps, so we parked the car, and let it sit.� Kevin wouldn’t even let us clean it, which is rare for Kevin.� At 3:30 PM, we pushed the car out of the garage, and at 3:50, Michael Lauer got in to do the last lap. He ended up doing 2 laps, and we finished 27^th overall, and 7^th in class.� The finish is better than the start, if you’re running, as all of the teams group up together to cross the finish line.� As soon as the race is over, they open the gates and the fans come down from the stands, onto the front stretch, and take whatever isn’t tied down in the pits.� There was even a naked guy jumping up and down on the pit wall.� Insane!!� .� Since the race ended, the class winning Dick Barbour car has been disqualified, with the second place car in question.� We might end up 5^th in class, who’s to know.

The big thing, to us, is that “WE FINISHED THE 24 HOURS OF LE MANS” on our first try.� Lots of teams never get the satisfaction of ever finishing the race.� We got it, and it’s great.� It makes it all that much more worth while.

I can’t wait until next year. I can’t see how it could top this year, but I’ll be sure and tell you about it then.