Latest / BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show / Evening With A Legend: Andy Pilgrim

Transcript

Evening With A Legend: Andy Pilgrim · BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show

0:00
Evening with the Legend is a series of presentations exclusive to
0:03
Legends of the Famous 24 Hours of Le Mans, giving us an opportunity
0:07
to bring a piece of Le Mans to you.
0:09
By sharing stories and highlights of the big event, you get a chance
0:13
to become part of the Legend of Le Mans, with guests from different
0:16
eras of over 100 years of racing.
0:34
Tonight, we have an opportunity to bring a piece of Le Mans to
0:37
you, sharing in the legend of Le Mans with guests from different
0:41
eras of over 100 years of racing.
0:43
And as your host, I'm delighted to introduce.
0:46
Andy Pilgrim, whose resume includes wins at the 12 hours of Sebring, the
0:50
Petit Le Mans, the Rolex 24, GT races on five continents, the Pikes Peak Hill
0:56
Climb, NASCAR, and six finishes with five podiums at the 24 hours of Le Mans.
1:02
He is best known for his days racing with Cadillac and Corvette Racing, and we're
1:06
honored to have him with us tonight to share his stories about racing at Le Mans.
1:11
And with that, I'm your host, Crew Chief Eric from the Motoring
1:13
Podcast Network, welcoming everyone to another Evening with a Legend.
1:17
Andy, welcome to the show.
1:19
Thanks so much, Eric.
1:20
It's really a privilege to be here.
1:21
It's an honor to be here.
1:22
Thank you.
1:23
For those of you that don't know Andy's origin story, we encourage you to check
1:27
Break Fix podcast episode number 136, where we covered his story in detail
1:32
from those early days of autocross, to the Renault Fuego Cup racing, to
1:36
Firestone Firehawk series, and all the way up to what you're doing today.
1:40
But before we jump right into your Le Mans story, tell us about how you got
1:45
into endurance racing, because those other series that I mentioned were
1:48
just stepping stones into endurance.
1:50
Was it always your goal to become an endurance driver?
1:53
When I started in a series like the Renault Cup series, you
1:56
could buy the car for 6, 500.
1:59
You could actually drive it to the racetrack because they were street
2:02
legal and maybe six or seven of us used to drive the cars to the racetrack.
2:05
I did the West Coast Series first.
2:07
It cost me 6, 500 bucks second hand and I could just about sleep in the car if
2:11
I needed to, maybe get a cheap hotel.
2:14
That's how you kind of start.
2:16
To move up, I didn't have a sponsor and I certainly didn't have the budget.
2:20
Luckily, when I sold the car, got the 3000 for the car, I bought two rides in what
2:25
was then the Firestone Firehawk series.
2:27
And that bought me two weekends in a Pontiac and that was in 1986.
2:32
It was gosh, there were probably 50 cars in the Grand Sport class at
2:35
that point, which was the top class.
2:37
And we ended up getting a couple of top 10 finishes, the gentleman
2:40
driver who owned the team and myself, he wasn't a bad driver at all.
2:44
You know, he sort of said after two races, nice job, we'll
2:46
see you again in a few weeks.
2:48
And I said, well, probably not because you know, I only managed to buy the
2:52
two weekends because he wasn't managing the team, somebody else's managing it.
2:55
And so he said, Oh, well, okay, Andy, it's been fun.
2:58
I got a call literally on the Tuesday the following week and it was him.
3:01
And he said, Hey, can you get yourself to the races?
3:04
And I said, yes.
3:06
And he said, look, for the rest of the season, I'd like you to be my teammate.
3:09
And if you can get yourself there, that would be wonderful.
3:12
And if we can do that, does that work for you?
3:14
And I said, ah, yeah, it works for me.
3:16
That's great.
3:17
And that's how I got in, but really and truly getting into an endurance series.
3:22
And there were so many teams from the touring car class.
3:26
To the sport class to the grand sport class at that point, sometimes over
3:29
a hundred entries for race weekend, a lot of us had that opportunity to get
3:36
a little bit of money, get a weekend or two and try to get into a series.
3:40
And there were enough gentlemen drivers around at the time, cause you didn't
3:43
need 5 million to do the series.
3:45
It was a great place for me to get in.
3:47
It was really economics.
3:48
And the fact that there was so much opportunity for me to be able to get
3:51
in and the Firestone Firehawk series was just a great series at that
3:54
time, just not super competitive, but the opportunity was there.
3:57
That's why it was really economics.
3:59
In that 10 year span between 1986 and the Firestone Firehawk series
4:04
up until your first time at Le Mans, obviously you got more and
4:07
more involved in endurance racing.
4:09
How did you physically have to change your driving style, building up the
4:13
tolerance to do endurance racing?
4:15
Was it something that you got more and more, let's say, conditioned to?
4:18
I was an athletic kid.
4:20
I was not an Olympic athlete, but high school, I would play soccer.
4:24
I would play cricket, play tennis, play rugby for my school, all kinds of stuff.
4:28
I was an athletic kid.
4:29
Driving gave me the, you know, you get car fit.
4:32
Do you know what I mean?
4:33
It's like you don't have to necessarily as a race car driver
4:36
look like an Olympic athlete.
4:37
Yeah, I'm fit, but there's a lot of guys that may not look the fittest guy
4:41
in the world, man, they are car fit.
4:43
What I needed to do understanding the racing was there was a mental side of it.
4:47
In endurance racing, sometimes you do a stint and then you
4:50
have to do another stint.
4:51
Because somebody is either not ready or somebody gets sick or something
4:54
like that, especially in the 24 hour races of which there were quite a few
4:59
between the world challenge series and also the Firestone Firehawk series.
5:04
There were a lot of 24 hour races.
5:06
And sometimes honestly, if you happen to be the quickest guy on the
5:09
team, you would get an opportunity to run potentially like 10 hours.
5:15
12 hours because they would just keep putting you back in the car
5:18
because you were making time up or you were holding position better
5:21
than somebody else might have done.
5:23
And so that conditioning in those cars was something because there was no
5:27
AC, there was no real thought about getting air in the car, they were hot.
5:32
Yeah, that was a very good training ground.
5:33
They were street tires.
5:35
To start with in those series, like shaved street tires.
5:38
So the grip levels, there wasn't really a tremendous amount of downforce.
5:42
And it was actually Tommy Morrison in the Corvettes later on.
5:45
I got into a car in the early nineties, 91, 1991 from the endurance racing in the
5:50
Firestone series or the world challenge.
5:52
Tommy, John Heinersey, Don Knowles, people like that.
5:55
We were given an opportunity to run with Morrison.
5:58
I started understanding how to run on slick tires, and then the World
6:02
Challenge, it got a little bit more serious, where you had front
6:05
diffuser and you had a rear wing.
6:08
Lo and behold, we were talking downforce.
6:10
And suddenly the setup of which I had become quite known, I guess,
6:15
as being a setup person, I could relate well with engineers.
6:18
And my background is more physics and computer science, if you like.
6:22
And I made it my business.
6:23
And you know who told me that?
6:24
It was Rob Wilson, the legend in my mind, Rob Wilson, the coach to F1.
6:28
Rob told me when I was at Miami 1988, and I was running there
6:33
and I was just talking to him.
6:34
And he was very, very straight guy.
6:36
You know, he's always smoking on a cigarette and stuff like that.
6:38
He's just a brilliant guy.
6:39
And he said, you know, Andy, he says there's 20 guys in any
6:42
series that are really quick.
6:43
He said, you don't have a budget.
6:45
We were talking about things like that.
6:46
He said, make sure you really understand cost setup.
6:50
And I made it my business from that point to understand cost setup.
6:53
And that's a big deal.
6:54
And it's understanding that difference.
6:55
So there's the mental side, there's the car fit side and things like that.
6:59
But it was those years gave me that opportunity.
7:02
And you've mentioned some of your colleagues.
7:04
There in that part of your story.
7:06
And you also made friends with folks like Johnny O'Connell and you ran with
7:09
Tommy Kendall and all these other names that we know from this side of the pond.
7:13
That graduating class of drivers.
7:15
I mean, you saw them everywhere and all sorts of different races.
7:18
How was the deal constructed that you ended up going to Lamont?
7:22
There's a lot of people that hope and pray.
7:23
And one day I'll get there and it's a bucket list thing, but you got there
7:26
not once, but six times, but that first time is always the toughest.
7:30
How did you get to Lamont?
7:31
The weirdest thing was that there were teams looking for drivers and they had
7:36
to have some kind of funding, but also if you were somebody that had a resume,
7:42
then you could bring a sponsor and you could then give a little bit of money.
7:47
And they would give you a potential opportunity.
7:50
I had a couple of friends in England, and one of them basically
7:53
told me that this in 1996, the new hardware team, they had a spot.
7:57
And if there was a little bit of sponsorship, then you could bring that,
8:01
then there was a potential opportunity.
8:03
I spoke to Bill Farmer, very, very nice guy from New Zealand.
8:07
Bill and I spoke, and we came up with a deal for me to be
8:10
able to do the race in 96.
8:13
And that's really how it started.
8:14
But my resume at that point was really important.
8:18
The fact that I'd driven on slick tires, I had a little bit of experience with
8:22
Porsche, thanks to super guy, you may remember Larry Schumacher, Larry gave
8:27
me a first opportunity in 1995 in a 911.
8:30
So the timing was perfect.
8:31
I mean, honestly, I dreamed about, Oh, I'd love to sit in a Porsche one
8:35
day, just because the legend of the name of Porsche, and he gave me that
8:39
opportunity and I drove with him in 95, a few times that all helped.
8:44
The fact that I had 911 experience, even though 96, the car was a
8:47
twin turbo, wasn't the, uh, the GT3 type car, the GT2 class.
8:51
It wasn't like the GT1 car, twin turbo Porsche, which I drove in 1997.
8:55
Those things were ridiculously fast there, especially at Le Mans.
8:59
They were, they were so much more horsepower, you know.
9:01
Coming up through Firestone, Firehawk, driving a Pontiac.
9:03
You got your first experience with the 911.
9:05
Had you driven a Corvette yet by that point?
9:07
Yeah, 1991, Tommy Morrison, cause he went from the Camaros to the Corvette.
9:11
And if you remember, the Lotus Head ZR1, that was the first car
9:15
that Tommy made into a GT car.
9:17
In fact, one of them is still in the, uh, Smithsonian, as an
9:20
example of an American GT car.
9:22
I don't know if it's on permanent display, but it was on display
9:25
for quite a few years, and I know it's still with the Smithsonian.
9:28
And that was one of Tommy's cars.
9:30
That was the car I drove, actually, that the Smithsonian has.
9:32
Did that leave a lasting impression for you, Corvette and GM and all that?
9:37
What did you think comparing it to the 911?
9:39
It's so different because even though they were sort of in the same class
9:42
early on like that, the Porsches were a more complete race car at that time.
9:47
And the Corvette was like, we're taking a street car, a very much a street car.
9:51
And Tommy's crew tried to make this thing into a GT car.
9:55
But it was still extremely heavy.
9:57
There was no way they could get it down to the lightweight of a 911, a
10:00
tailor made GT car, if you like, right from the factory, it was different.
10:04
You had to drive it differently.
10:06
The Porsche was much more nimble, yet the Corvette was pretty fast on the
10:10
straights, you know, and things like that.
10:12
So first impressions are everything.
10:13
So you get to Le Mans.
10:14
Yes.
10:15
And you're no stranger to endurance racing at this point, Rolex, all these others.
10:19
But Le Mans is something different.
10:21
It's grand just in the lap itself, let alone everything else.
10:24
So what were your first thoughts when you got there?
10:27
How were you received?
10:28
What did you think about the Circuit de la Sarthe?
10:31
It's hard to describe, but there were no simulators.
10:34
I had looked at a map.
10:36
I really had no idea.
10:38
It was awe inspiring.
10:39
The thing that struck me the first time out was finding my way through the
10:43
Dunlop Bridge, down to Tetrouge, and out onto Tetrouge, going down towards
10:47
the first chicane, because we had the, the chicane's already there, obviously.
10:50
And it was just like, when am I going to get there?
10:52
It's like, you know, the straightaways on normal road courses.
10:55
These things are twice as long each time before you get to a chicane.
10:58
They're twice as long.
10:59
So I'm like going down this thing and it was just that.
11:03
And then it's like, so you come through the chicane, you figure out the chicane.
11:06
come out and then there's another one.
11:08
It was just the immensity of the track.
11:11
And it was like you were, you were leaving a racetrack, you know,
11:13
the Bugatti circuit, you leave the Bugatti circuit, and then you go onto
11:17
the back and it's like, you know, you're going off to see grandma.
11:19
Here we are out in the country, you know, it was just an amazing experience.
11:23
I did three laps total in practice, four maybe, before the race started,
11:28
because they didn't have all the money to fix the car, they didn't have engines.
11:31
And honestly, that was the deal.
11:33
It was like, we do as few laps as possible, you'll
11:35
learn it through the race.
11:37
Stefan Noateli was with me as a teammate, and also Andrew Bagnell, who's
11:41
a gentleman driver from New Zealand.
11:43
Now Stefan was really quick.
11:45
I mean, the kid was an F Formula driver.
11:48
He won Le Mans overall with Alan McNish, I think in 99 in the
11:51
GT1 Porsche, maybe 98 actually.
11:53
But it was just an amazing experience.
11:56
I, I had such a smile on my face.
11:58
It was such a smile on my face.
12:00
And once I'd done those three laps, then it was get your book out, write
12:04
each corner, visualize each corner, try and remember each corner because
12:08
you're not going to get much time.
12:09
Then I got three laps in night practice.
12:11
I had to learn the track as best I could because night practice is pretty serious.
12:15
You've got to do your lap, so you need to finish, but you also,
12:17
I wanted to get my speed up.
12:19
And I kept getting faster each lap, even though it was only six laps, I
12:22
got to a respectable place, not as quick as Ortelli, but not that far off.
12:27
And it was like, I could do my job.
12:29
It was hard work.
12:31
I mean, I really worked at it to try and make sure that I was doing it.
12:34
I was playing it out in my head, visualizing parts of the track,
12:37
visualizing another part of the track, realizing the parts where I
12:40
could really lose some time, other parts where I could make time.
12:44
It was a fantastic experience.
12:45
And one of the things I often think we take for granted in thinking about races
12:50
like this is there's a lot to it when it comes to traffic management as well.
12:53
And you running in the GT class, you've got at the time, the prototypes and some
12:58
of the faster cars up on top of you all the time, and in 1996 and 97 and so on.
13:03
You're there with other big name drivers.
13:05
Like Mario Andretti was there with the courage team in LMP one.
13:09
So what was that like?
13:10
You're trying to learn the track and manage all of these bees that
13:14
are buzzing around you basically.
13:16
Absolutely.
13:16
And you know, what really helped the fact that I'd done enough racing and
13:20
touring cars in the Firestone series.
13:22
60 70 percent of the lap, honestly, in a touring car in the series, you're
13:26
in a Honda Civic Si, and you're up against Camaros and Pontiacs with
13:30
much greater straightaway speed, possibly 40 or 50 miles an hour.
13:34
Well, guess what?
13:35
It was similar there, but just at higher speed overall.
13:38
And you're running 60, 70 percent of the time in your mirrors.
13:40
So I was really comfortable with using mirrors and the Porsche does
13:44
have pretty good rear visibility.
13:46
It's not like suddenly you're going into only rear view mirrors.
13:49
You have the rear view mirror and that experience helped a tremendous amount.
13:52
So 1996 was the only year you didn't podium out of the six
13:56
times you went to Le Mans.
13:57
So you finish, you've got all your notes, the race is over,
14:01
everything that happened in 96.
14:03
How did 97 happen?
14:04
Did you just get a phone call again and say, Andy, we want you back in the car?
14:07
Yeah.
14:08
And again, it was like, okay, not the new hardware guys.
14:11
They only went there the one time from New Zealand.
14:13
It was a big New Zealand operation.
14:15
It was super to be part of it.
14:16
But then I was looking to do some more racing in Europe
14:19
if I could possibly do it.
14:20
So I had a little bit of sponsorship that I gained and I was really
14:24
trying hard to figure it out.
14:25
Well, a Porsche factory connected team was the Rook racing team and the Rook
14:29
racing brothers out of Poland, Germany.
14:31
I called them and asked, you know, if there was any chance of doing something.
14:36
put together a deal for Le Mans.
14:38
I mean, it was fairly close to Le Mans.
14:40
I wasn't sure I was going to be able to do it with them because people
14:43
have more budget and things like that.
14:45
But essentially that's what happened.
14:47
And their car was a little bit different to the new hardware car.
14:51
It was a little more prepared.
14:52
If you like, it was a lighter, at least it felt lighter to steer the car.
14:57
When I went back, I was instantly on pace.
15:00
Pre qualifying was a big deal back then, of Olivier Barretta and Wendlinger, and
15:05
those people were in the, the Vipers were there then, the factory team.
15:08
And also, like, Jean Pierre Jarrier was in a Porsche there, the Formula One guy.
15:13
And at pre qualifying, I can still remember, I put a pretty good lap
15:17
together and ended up being on pole for pre qualifying, ahead of
15:21
Barretta and, uh, Jean Pierre Jarrier.
15:23
And that was a big turning point because people started, who is this guy, you
15:29
know, this American slash English person, but it was the big turning point.
15:33
More things that came after, you're going to ask me about anyway, came from that.
15:39
My time at Le Mans, we almost won.
15:41
We had a turbo failure within the last hour of the race.
15:44
That cost us enough time that we unfortunately finished second.
15:47
That first year, I think working as hard as I did to memorize, figure it
15:51
out, work on things when I wasn't there.
15:54
And when I came back, I was ready.
15:55
And I didn't have a simulator or anything like that, but I think
15:58
you can do a lot of visualization.
15:59
If you make good notes from the time, contemporaneous notes really
16:03
help you come back to that moment.
16:05
I was just.
16:06
Chewing over my notes before I got there for 97.
16:09
And I was very happy with that.
16:10
I think Andre Alla and Bruno Eichmann, who was a Porsche Carrera Cup champion.
16:15
He was a extremely quick guy as well.
16:18
So I was really, really happy with that deal because it showed
16:22
me a progression, you know.
16:23
And you're very humble about that second place finish because it's actually
16:27
also a 10th place finish overall, which is nothing to shy away from as well.
16:32
So it absolutely amazing.
16:33
One thing on that, which I just remembered was we lost the power steering with eight
16:37
hours left to go and they never got fixed.
16:40
And that made it tough.
16:43
And it's really funny how some of these stories very much parallel with
16:47
other drivers, because as I think back, we had Rob Dyson on and he
16:51
talked about studying Brian Redmond's notes and getting all this information
16:55
for other people and the same thing.
16:56
They had turbo issues with the 956 and they limped it to the
17:00
end, but they placed well, there seems to be this common thread.
17:03
Absolutely.
17:04
You've just, you've got to finish.
17:05
You gotta finish.
17:06
And that's just part of it too.
17:08
You know, you talked about pre qualifying, and how well you did, and where you
17:11
were against everybody else, but we all know the race is not won in turn one.
17:15
It's a 24 hour race.
17:17
There's a lot to get done.
17:18
Yeah, some drivers seem to have a hard time learning that.
17:25
1997 and then we've got a bit of a three year gap and then you start
17:30
to put on the GM racing suit.
17:32
Your whole career changes from that point.
17:34
You get instantly recognized iconic cars.
17:38
Not only the Corvette number three that you shared with Dale and Dale Jr at Rolex.
17:42
But also the Cadillac you drove and all the other things you've
17:44
done with GM over the last 20 plus years, how did we get to GM in 2000?
17:49
And what was it like being part of the birth of team Corvette racing and
17:53
Jake and the C5R and all this whole new program that they established?
17:57
Okay.
17:58
So they were looking for drivers, obviously, as they put the program
18:03
together, Ron fellows, John Heiner see, and I think Chris knifel also.
18:08
But mostly Ron and John Heinersey were involved in the development
18:12
of the car from like 1997, 98.
18:16
And I got a call halfway through 1998 from Doug Feehan, not with an offer per
18:21
se, it was like, do you have an interest?
18:23
If we can put something together, something Corvette related, and
18:27
we'd like to put your name in the hat if you're interested, and we're
18:30
going to be doing endurance races.
18:32
You'd be doing the long races next year if it all comes together.
18:36
And I said, of course, I'd be super happy.
18:38
That came from the guy that was running and working with Pontiac.
18:43
When I started running with the Pontiacs, there was a connection
18:46
with Pontiac factory there through a gentleman called Gary Claudio.
18:49
And Gary was a manager at General Motors.
18:52
He was responsible for the drag racing part, but I think they
18:56
sort of moved him to the road racing side when I was at Pontiac.
18:59
And we became friendly at that time, but Gary was such a great guy.
19:02
And I genuinely believe that Gary was the person that said, Hey, we should give Andy
19:07
Pilgrim a shot to try out type of thing.
19:10
Cause it was one of those things where you're going to try out.
19:12
Then they had tryouts at Rotorlanta in October, November of 1998.
19:18
And that's the first time I drove the car.
19:20
And there were two cars there.
19:21
And funnily, at that time, Pratt Miller really didn't exist in a way.
19:25
It did, but it was really small.
19:27
There were probably nine guys there or 10 guys there with Gary Pratt.
19:30
So the other car was actually run by Bill Riley.
19:33
Riley Engineering ran the second car, even though they were
19:36
both cars under GM, obviously.
19:38
At that time, Gary needed help, and so they brought in, uh,
19:42
Riley to run the car in 99.
19:44
So, I was running the car that was being done by Bill Riley, and Ron
19:48
Fellows, and Kneifel, and John Paul Jr.
19:51
was the other one that was on that car.
19:53
And we had, on Heinrich C, we had Scott Sharp as well.
19:56
So that's kind of how that started.
19:57
We had to do a test at, uh, Road Atlanta.
20:00
That's how that started.
20:01
Now there was no Le Mans in 99, because they were putting the car together.
20:05
They were doing the research, doing the development work through that whole year.
20:09
And again, Ron Fellows had done most of that development work.
20:12
That's where it started.
20:13
But driving with the Porsche, having done Le Mans, the Le Mans thing
20:17
was thought about at that time.
20:19
Maybe that was part of it.
20:20
Because I had done Le Mans twice.
20:23
Ron had never done it, and I thought never done it.
20:25
They had Justin Bell coming as well in the other car.
20:27
John Paul Giugni didn't run Le Mans in 2000.
20:30
So we had drivers, Frank Freon had run Le Mans.
20:32
He was in our car.
20:34
And I was the one that told Feehan that, Hey, you should consider Callie Collins.
20:38
Kelly and I were friends and he tried out and he did a super job.
20:41
So it was Kelly, Frank, Freon, and myself in our core.
20:44
Kelly did such a super job that he was your teammate for the next
20:47
three Le Mans after the initial one.
20:49
Absolutely.
20:50
As was Frank.
20:50
And then Ollie Gavin came in, I think.
20:52
Yeah.
20:53
You got your first taste of Corvette with the C4 base ZR1
20:56
before you started with the 911s.
20:58
Yep.
20:59
But now the C5R, totally different car, totally different engineering.
21:03
It's a devoted race team.
21:04
They're really trying to build a program around this.
21:06
How does the C5R compare to the 993 base GT2 911 that you
21:12
had run at Le Mans previously?
21:13
Oh, well, first of all, the Corvettes acceleration and the downforce was
21:18
significantly more, significantly more.
21:21
So you had to get up to speed through the Porsche curves,
21:24
for instance, that was big.
21:25
Tetra Rouge, although it was always bumpy, that was a corner.
21:29
Dunlop curves was always kind of small, the S's after Dunlop.
21:32
That was a place also where the downforce had an effect.
21:35
I had to work my way up because it was like, okay, this is a lot more downforce.
21:40
And you've got to be careful because obviously we had crashes
21:43
at the Porsche Coupes throughout practice and everything else.
21:46
There's always issues there.
21:47
So you have to really have your game together and learning
21:51
that the sound of the car, the Porsche was loud, but not really.
21:55
The Corvette was deafening.
21:57
The funny thing when we were first there in 2000 with the
22:00
car, the cars were on pit lane.
22:02
My car was on pit lane first and we were sitting there ready for practice to start.
22:07
And then I'm thinking, wow, there's a lot of people around now.
22:10
I didn't realize that they have so many people are allowed around on pit
22:13
lane and things like that at the time.
22:15
And a ton of journalists were around the car from wherever they were.
22:19
And a lot of the French people, some of the officials were there probably
22:22
from ACO was standing there and the car was completely surrounded.
22:26
And they said on the radio, okay, fire it up and the car, you fire it and turn it.
22:31
And then the exhaust pipes, you know, uh, this thick, you know, this, they round.
22:35
And when it goes, it's bah, bah, and it just bop, bop, bop, bop, bop like this.
22:40
And everybody around the car jumped.
22:42
And then it was all these big smiles, like, Oh, Magnifique,
22:47
you know, it was super.
22:48
I mean, they was like going, Oh, this is superb.
22:51
You know, you could, I could see them all talk and I was like, great.
22:54
It was so cool.
22:55
I was being the first one in the car.
22:56
It was so cool because pre practice hadn't quite started yet.
22:59
So you had had some seat time in the Corvette because of ALMS.
23:04
What was it like turning your first practice laps in the C5R at Le Mans?
23:10
Well, it had been three years since I was there because it was 2000 and I
23:14
remember that I was sort of told from the gearbox in just be easy with the
23:18
gearbox, be easy with the differential.
23:19
So actually I got to do some laps at a slower speed because
23:24
of running that stuff in.
23:25
And I was really glad I had because they gave me two laps to run everything
23:29
in and then I came in, then I could go out at full chat and I was on it.
23:34
Just sighting at a slower speed made a big difference.
23:38
But what struck me immediately was the braking because you could brake so late,
23:43
you know, we had a lot more downforce.
23:44
I mean, honestly, some of the Porsches at the end of the straightaway, you could
23:48
catch them coming onto the straightaway and then at top speed, you'd be basically
23:51
at the same speed as some of the Porsches that were not in your class.
23:54
It was amazing because they have just so much less drag and less downforce.
23:57
But then you go into the brake zone, they might brake at a 300
24:00
and you're braking at like 175.
24:02
So you just fly to the brake point, you know, and then the
24:05
prototypes are going to the 100.
24:07
So it was, it was crazy.
24:08
It was really crazy.
24:09
You've talked about Viper.
24:10
Yes.
24:11
You were in the throes of what I saw at the time as one of the more
24:15
interesting rivalries, because the Porsche Corvette rivalry has been
24:19
around since the beginning almost.
24:20
Certainly in the street car sense.
24:22
Yeah.
24:22
For sure.
24:23
But Viper versus Corvette at Le Mans in ALMS and all the series.
24:28
What was that like going head to head with Viper teams?
24:31
They were the world champions.
24:32
They'd been world champions in 97.
24:34
They were champions 98 and they were champions in 99.
24:37
And in 2000, it was like, here they are.
24:39
They're still the world champions.
24:41
And we knew that we were against it.
24:44
We really were.
24:44
I mean, the Viper was quick on the straightaways.
24:47
They weren't as good as us through the curvy bit.
24:50
Um, I had some good battles like early morning.
24:52
I think it was like five o'clock in the morning to like
24:54
seven o'clock in the morning.
24:55
I had a really good battle with one of the Viper drivers.
24:57
I forget who it was, but we had a really good run and he would just
25:00
kill me on the straightaways through Porsche curves and all the way
25:04
through the start and finish line.
25:05
I could make it back up.
25:06
It was getting really old.
25:07
And then as my tires went off, Halfway through, I couldn't do it anymore.
25:11
And he was just pulling away at that point.
25:12
But it was tremendous.
25:14
And they had tremendous support.
25:16
But they were just so together.
25:17
I think we did a pretty fair job, honestly.
25:19
But they were the mark to beat.
25:21
They won Daytona.
25:22
They won Sebring.
25:23
They won Le Mans in that year.
25:25
We got our first Corvette win in Texas.
25:28
But the one after that, we got Petit Le Mans in 2000.
25:31
And that was actually stopping them getting their four big ones in one year.
25:35
Took from 99 all the way to the end of 2000 for us, literally two seasons,
25:39
really, to get to where they were, you know, I heard a conversation that had
25:43
happened between the ACO and I believe the Corvette team at that time manager was
25:48
talking about it and said, so there's so much faster than us on the straightaway.
25:52
I said, yes, yes, we've been talking to ACO about it.
25:55
And the ACO gentleman official, he said, You have to work on your car.
26:01
You are just coming here.
26:03
They are four years in their development work on your car.
26:07
And it was like, okay.
26:09
All right, fair enough.
26:10
That's what it was.
26:11
We knew we were up against it, but, uh, we did the best we could, and
26:14
there's really not a comparison between the Porsche because of the downforce.
26:18
The straightaway speed, yeah, at the end of the straight, was similar,
26:21
around 185 to 190 miles an hour, power drag related, but the cornering
26:26
speeds were totally different, the braking points were different.
26:28
Because of the downforce.
26:30
So no balance of performance for you guys that first year.
26:33
Yeah, it was actually great.
26:35
I mean, it was, it was all good.
26:36
You still podiumed, you came in third, and then the three subsequent years,
26:40
second place every time with the Corvette.
26:42
So when you look back at that fourth time with Team Corvette in the C5R in 2003,
26:48
and you look back at 2000, four seasons prior, now you've got those four years
26:54
under your belt, just like Team Viper did.
26:56
How much had the Corvette changed in that time?
26:58
It had become better because there was an update on the car
27:02
that gave us a bit more track.
27:04
And also we had the gearbox became a transactional gearbox.
27:07
That made a big difference as well.
27:09
So the things that were coming.
27:11
Along from the engineering side made a huge difference.
27:14
It wasn't that the car was any quicker on the straightaway.
27:16
It wasn't, but it just became much easier to manage it.
27:19
We needed less drag so we could use less wing.
27:22
If you like, we create less downforce and we still had a little bit better aero, but
27:26
the King of aero was still the Ferrari.
27:28
I think that Lamont was crazy.
27:30
The Ferrari that we ran against later, 2001 to that thing
27:34
was fast in the straightaway.
27:35
It was crazy.
27:36
I think 311 kilometers.
27:38
I mean, they were close to 200 miles an hour.
27:40
It was crazy.
27:41
They were fast.
27:41
And that was the 360 Modena chassis, I believe.
27:44
I think it was.
27:45
Yeah.
27:45
Talking about that initial time out with the C5R was how you had
27:49
to sort of bed the car in, you know, let everything come to temp.
27:52
You got your sighting laps in slower.
27:54
It reminds me of a theme that comes up with every driver.
27:57
Like we said, you don't win Le Mans turn one, it's a 24 hour race,
28:01
but there's also multiple drivers.
28:02
So one of the things that it's super important is the
28:05
concept of mechanical sympathy.
28:07
Reliability of the vehicles also really, really important.
28:10
And you've got a new car on a new chassis.
28:13
It's untested, right?
28:15
No turbos to worry about, like in the 911 that would fly.
28:17
fail, but did you have any issues with the Corvette or was it knock on wood,
28:22
just reliable all the way through?
28:23
There was some issues along the way, but nothing that was a nagging single issue.
28:29
There was one point where I think it was a sump plug.
28:32
Somehow somebody maybe gone over a curb or something and something was
28:36
leaking underneath and they realized.
28:38
That it was a plug, one of the mechanics, genius.
28:41
So once they realized what it was and they pulled out the piece, they
28:45
realized there was negative vacuum.
28:47
So they basically put some packing material on the outside.
28:51
They stuck it there.
28:52
And basically, as long as the car was running, it pulled it in and it was
28:55
like, it was solid enough and it fixed it for the whole rest of the 24 hour race.
28:59
I remember that the suspension say solid.
29:01
I mean, the thing was built.
29:03
Because I think Pratt Miller knew enough about the Daytona
29:06
and Sebring in particular.
29:08
Le Mans doesn't beat the car up like Sebring.
29:10
Sebring is ridiculous.
29:12
So I think when they built the car, they built it really tough.
29:15
And the gearbox, yes, there was no real issue with the gearbox at all.
29:19
But once we got in the transactional, it was just a better shift.
29:21
It wasn't like an age pattern, which it was initially, it was an age pattern.
29:25
And then it became more of a sequential pullback.
29:27
And then of course, later became the paddles with the C6R, which
29:31
I drove just one time in 2007.
29:33
So why does your Le Mans story stop in 2003?
29:37
Why didn't you go back?
29:38
That'd been moved to Cadillac.
29:39
Cadillac wasn't going there, right?
29:41
They gave me the opportunity to drive the Cadillacs for another, gosh,
29:43
10, 11 years, which was amazing.
29:45
But we didn't go to Le Mans, right?
29:47
So they had Corvette drivers there.
29:48
And I was now a Cadillac driver, if you like.
29:50
Any opportunities I had at Le Mans with another team had to be approved.
29:55
And there was one year in particular I had a chance to
29:58
go, but it wasn't a GM vehicle.
30:00
And I would have been running in the same class.
30:02
against the Corvettes, not that they were worried about me specifically.
30:05
They didn't want a GM driver driving against the GM car.
30:08
It was as simple as that.
30:09
So it was something that I'd done.
30:12
I didn't have the wherewithal.
30:13
I didn't have the context to potentially set that up again.
30:16
It was just the reality.
30:17
I didn't.
30:18
Obviously, I was busy in the States doing the series that I was doing
30:21
with Cadillac and things like that.
30:22
So had you had the opportunity to campaign the CTS V, how do you think
30:25
it would have fared at Le Mans?
30:27
That's a great question.
30:28
It was a lot more complicated than the Corvette.
30:31
It was a great sprint race car, and it was reliable for most of the time, especially
30:35
the first generation and second generation cars were quite, quite reliable.
30:40
The car would have done well, but it didn't have the downforce.
30:42
It wasn't set up to be a high downforce car in World Challenge.
30:45
It wasn't really until 2011 12 when the first generation of
30:50
Amoligated GT3 cars came out, and it was a whole different world.
30:54
And the second generation Cadillac had to compete a year or two
30:57
against those first gen GT3 cars.
31:00
And it did a pretty fair job up to 2014.
31:03
But you can get a good idea how it would have done because we were
31:06
running against the Porsche, we were running against Ferraris, we
31:09
were running against those Vipers.
31:11
That car did a pretty good job.
31:12
So in World Challenge car, it was very similar at that point
31:15
to a GT3 car, or the cars that we would have been competing against.
31:19
In 11, 12.
31:20
So I think it would have done well, but it wasn't designed to do 24 hour races.
31:24
It was a more complicated car.
31:25
If things went wrong, it wasn't a quick fix.
31:28
The Corvette was built more to do quick fixes and the Cadillac
31:32
certainly wasn't that way.
31:34
It was, I mean, the engineers are telling me that I didn't work on it,
31:36
but they told me there's a lot, you know, it takes a while to do things.
31:40
And I, obviously there's no reason to go prototype.
31:43
Sure.
31:43
The prototypes were there in 2001, 2002 with Cadillac.
31:46
That's a whole different class.
31:48
Yeah.
31:48
But for another GT car to go there, I can understand why that
31:51
wouldn't even been on the cards.
31:52
So a lot of drivers have said that Le Mans changed them, them personally
31:57
changed their driving style.
31:58
They learned a lot.
31:59
You know, there's many challenges to driving at Le Mans.
32:02
What did you take away from Le Mans?
32:03
How did it change you?
32:04
You look at physical racetracks.
32:06
Sebring is a physical racetrack.
32:08
There are tracks that are physical and there are tracks that are not so physical.
32:12
But Le Mans, for me, I started using the word, it's a mental racetrack.
32:16
And I don't mean mental by the fact that it's nuts.
32:19
I mean mental by the fact that you can easily lose concentration.
32:22
And it's a strange place because you're in the lights when you're
32:25
in the Bugatti area, and you're coming through there at night.
32:28
In particular, night is what I'm gonna really say.
32:31
There's 55 cars on the track.
32:33
If you have like a restart, at the time, you know, you'd have a
32:36
restart after a yellow or something.
32:37
There were three pace cars.
32:38
In 1996, For instance, I was on my own, literally on my, I mean, I could
32:44
barely see lights behind me and I could see nothing in front of me.
32:47
And there were two instances where it wasn't like I lost concentration by any
32:51
means, but my perspective wasn't good.
32:54
I was coming out of the second chicane at Molson and I was like coming towards where
33:00
you have the hump before you cut into Molson corner, the right hander there.
33:05
And I'm coming along and before I can see the horizon of the road
33:10
because behind it is an orange glow thinking like something's on fire.
33:14
I can understand that.
33:16
So I'm concentrating on this orange glow and I'm doing 185 miles an hour
33:20
close to it and I'm coming up there.
33:22
I'm in left lane because I'm coming up to a right hand corner and then
33:25
I notice, luckily, there was a guy with a standing on the white
33:30
line in the middle of the road.
33:33
And I'm on his left, and he's pointing, go around me this way.
33:36
I had perspective on the orange glow, and I almost missed him.
33:41
And it scared the bejesus out of me.
33:44
And I missed him, and I went over the top.
33:46
I was still going way quick, but I was off the gas, obviously, going over the top.
33:50
And this car was just an Inferno.
33:52
It was a GT1 Porsche.
33:53
I think it was actually the France Conrad car burning up.
33:56
You're thinking, God, did someone crash?
33:58
Is everybody okay?
33:59
You're going by and then you're still doing 160 and suddenly you've got
34:03
to go into Moson corner and you're like, Hey, get your head back.
34:06
It was a real huge wake up call.
34:09
Those things, when you're going that fast for that long, and
34:12
especially at night, that change in perspective, boy, it woke me up.
34:16
I realized that you cannot relax.
34:19
You cannot relax because strange stuff happens in the dark and it's
34:23
so, so dark in the back there.
34:25
There's no lighting whatsoever.
34:26
It's amazing.
34:28
And the same thing happened later in the race.
34:30
And when I was coming up to Indianapolis, and again, you know, coming out
34:33
of Mulsanne Corner, all you do is cranking it up all the way as fast
34:36
as it'll go towards Indianapolis.
34:38
You have the little kink, then you have the look slightly bigger
34:40
kink, but you can still do it flat.
34:42
And I'm coming up to the second kink, and it just goes uphill very,
34:46
very slightly, and the barrier is quite close to you on the left.
34:49
And in my lights, I just saw some grass, just grass floating in the wind.
34:54
I suddenly went, whoa, and I got off the gas.
34:57
Because I thought, I don't know, I don't see anything.
35:00
And I went around the next kink, and there in the middle of the track, on the left
35:04
side, where I was, was a car sideways.
35:07
And I was like, jeez LPs.
35:09
And they had just happened, and they didn't have flags out.
35:12
Somehow I missed it, because I got off the gas enough, and I moved
35:15
the car to the right, and just missed the front of this guy's car.
35:18
And it was sitting there, he done, just done a big spin, he must have
35:20
dropped a tire off or something.
35:22
Again, it was like twice, and that was two different stints.
35:25
And it's a, you know, it's a short night there, and I did two nightstints
35:28
that race in 96, and it was like, oh, you know, this is crazy.
35:33
You know, you suddenly start doubting yourself, like, why am I doing this?
35:36
I'm a semi intelligent person.
35:38
Yeah, those kinds of things stay with you, really.
35:40
I mean, it gets my heart racing just thinking about it telling you right now.
35:43
Well, you're not the only one that doesn't like running in the dark.
35:46
We've had many other people say that, but you have no choice at Le Mans, right?
35:49
It's a 24 hour race.
35:50
No, I, I don't mind running in the dark, but Le Mans lets you
35:54
know, you really can't see me.
35:56
The lights are good for like 80 miles an hour.
35:58
Let's be honest, especially back then, you were out running
36:01
the lights by twice the speed.
36:03
So, you know, you're just hoping you get something.
36:06
So it just lets you know, your eyes have to be as far into that
36:09
dark as you can possibly get.
36:11
And then forget about raining.
36:12
2001, the rain.
36:13
Oh my goodness.
36:15
I'm glad you brought that up because weather conditions are so variable at
36:18
Lamar on one side it could be raining the other side it could be dry you
36:22
know you experience everything there's some other tracks that are like that
36:24
too Watkins Glen Spa etc where they're so big they have these microclimates
36:29
to what we were talking about before a lot of people don't like running
36:31
in the dark But more so running in the rain at Lamar is treacherous.
36:35
So what is that like?
36:36
Oh, it's mad.
36:37
It's completely mad.
36:38
I mean, you come out onto the straightaway, even when it's daylight,
36:41
it's foggy because of the spray.
36:43
Now, if you're running on your own, it's not too bad.
36:45
The rain tires are pretty good.
36:46
As long as you don't have standing water, you know, you just go flat out
36:49
and obviously breaking earlier, you less lateral grip and all the rest of it.
36:52
But you run hard in the rain.
36:54
It's not a problem per se, but if suddenly you're in a pack of cars
36:59
and you're the fifth car in line or.
37:01
Cars are side by side, you're running in fog, you can't see.
37:05
There's a pink tinge of a car's light in front of you, but that's about it.
37:09
You can't see much else.
37:11
And in the Corvette, in 2001, I would basically get the car into the left lane,
37:16
coming out of Tetra Rouge, and out of the peripheral vision in my eye, I could see
37:21
the white line at the side of the road.
37:23
Because if I looked ahead, I could literally see nothing but fog and mist.
37:27
Nothing.
37:28
And so all you were looking for is the light in the mist getting brighter.
37:32
And if it is, then you, you start backing it off.
37:34
And that was it.
37:35
But honestly, you had to keep the peripheral vision in the side
37:37
because I really couldn't see ahead.
37:39
You were definitely questioning your sanity after each stint.
37:42
You really, and truly, it was crazy.
37:44
It was a crazy race because most of it was pouring rain.
37:47
And it literally started on the first lap of the race.
37:50
Ron's car was on wets, I was on dries, and I almost completely
37:55
crashed the car out on the first lap.
37:57
I just got lucky that I clipped another car that was basically crashed in
38:01
the road, clipped another car because where we were it had suddenly rained,
38:05
and literally I was aquaplaning, sliding, and I just teased the car
38:09
through a gap, and I just clipped.
38:10
The left front wheel.
38:11
So the steering was like that for the rest of the race.
38:14
But luckily that's all that happened.
38:16
Luckily.
38:17
And we ended up finishing, I think, second or something.
38:20
It was crazy.
38:21
You had an illustrious career under the GM flag and running
38:25
both Cadillacs and Corvettes.
38:26
21 years in GM.
38:29
You saw a lot of change from your initial driving a C4 to the C5, 6s, 7s, and
38:34
the birth of the C8, especially with your ties to the National Corvette.
38:38
But I always wondered if you had a hand in the design of the National Corvette Museum
38:43
track itself, because there's certain parts of that that emulate Le Mans.
38:47
Does that come from your experience?
38:48
No, not at all.
38:50
They had several people work on that track together.
38:53
I was not one of those people, but they purposely did put in pieces.
38:57
Of like the Le Mans chicane, right?
38:58
The Le Mans chicane in their turn 1A, 1B is a replica of the first Le Mans chicane.
39:04
You know, it's got a long straightaway piece as well,
39:06
but no, I wasn't part of that.
39:08
But I did do some consulting work there for four years,
39:10
which I thoroughly enjoyed.
39:12
It was a lot of fun, but that track is a great track at the museum.
39:14
It's a super, super track.
39:16
It's fun, really, really fun track.
39:17
So if you could go back to Lamont today and you're still racing, you know, you're
39:21
still out there, you're turning laps.
39:23
If you could drive any car and turn laps at Lamont again, what would it be?
39:27
I think I'd like to drive the 1998 Porsche GT one that my good, good
39:34
friend, Alan McNish won the race in.
39:36
Cause he said it was just such a fun car to drive.
39:38
I got to drive the Evo version of that car in 99 with Alan.
39:43
And I also drove in 97 with Alan in the first generation car.
39:46
I don't even know what they call it.
39:47
I guess it would have been third generation car of that GT1.
39:49
That was such a beautiful car.
39:51
I would have loved to have raced that one.
39:53
And also I would have to say the current C8.
39:57
I, I've never driven the C8 race car and I would love to
40:00
have a go in that car as well.
40:02
Absolutely.
40:03
That would be fun.
40:04
Looking at the success of team Corvette, who just now privatized everything, right?
40:09
It's no longer officially Jim Pratt and Miller took over officially
40:12
and kind of the same model that Ferrari and Porsche follow.
40:15
What are your thoughts on team Corvette?
40:17
You were there at the beginning.
40:19
You were there at the end, seeing the completion of that whole story.
40:22
Yeah, I think it's a great move.
40:23
I think it's a great move for Pratt and Miller to build those cars.
40:27
Yeah.
40:27
I've heard good things about the new car.
40:29
It's certainly under development.
40:31
Some of the guys that have been involved in the development, you
40:33
know, working hard on that car.
40:35
I, in fact, I ran into the guys at Paul Ricard this year.
40:38
They were there testing after we were done testing there.
40:40
They were testing the next day, which was really great to see some
40:43
of the engineers and Garcia was there as well, which was great.
40:46
And also my old friend, Stefan Altelli as well.
40:48
He was there, which was crazy.
40:49
I think it's the way to go for them.
40:51
It means that they can get more Corvettes out there.
40:54
People will have more access to it.
40:56
They still have the factory engineers helping out these teams
40:59
to help develop the car further.
41:01
So I think it's a super way to go because honestly, GM want more people
41:05
in these cars, more people racing these cars, just like they did with the C5s.
41:09
A lot of the cars ended up overseas, C6s and also the
41:12
C7s they passed these cars on.
41:14
I think it's great because I had a meeting where I work for Motortrend
41:18
sometimes on and off over the years and I'm still with them if you like.
41:22
I was there a couple of years ago when they introduced the new Cayman
41:25
with the GT3 engine and I was sitting next to Andres Pruninga.
41:30
It was funny because we were at dinner.
41:32
Andy, he said, how's the, how's the C8 coming along?
41:35
And I said, no, I said, it's great.
41:36
I said, it's, it's, it's a good car.
41:38
I said, it's a really nice car.
41:39
He said, yes, we were very, very happy to see the C8.
41:43
I said, really?
41:44
He said, Andy, there's not many of those cars left.
41:47
He said, if Corvette doesn't make a C8 or a C9 or something like that,
41:52
it's hard for other companies to make a case for their sports cars.
41:55
Sports cars are becoming rarer and rarer.
41:57
And I was just thinking, you asked me that.
41:59
It's nice to see that because it means that race car versions of
42:02
this thing are going to keep going.
42:04
And Porsche can keep going and Toyota can keep going with a Supra, the BRZ and
42:08
the, and the, uh, 86 and the Nissan 400Z.
42:12
I love to see sports cars out there because it's a big
42:14
thing to get in a sports car.
42:16
I don't care.
42:16
You know, I love low power cars as much as high power cars.
42:19
Obviously there'll be the really high end cars, but more accessible ones
42:23
is great because there's nothing like doing a track day, go to an autocross.
42:28
Enjoy your cars and they're just so much fun to drive.
42:30
This past year, the 2024, the hundred and first lama, we really
42:34
saw the bridge beginning to get closer between WEC and imsa.
42:41
We saw Toyota there with the Lexus.
42:43
We saw BMW In the GT classes, there were a lot more cars.
42:47
It looked more like an IMSA race in some respects.
42:50
Mm-Hmm.
42:50
. And like you, I get excited about that because I do want to see more sports cars.
42:54
Exactly.
42:54
At Lama.
42:55
And it was so cool for Porsche guys to tell me, Hey, cause he knew, you know,
42:59
it was related, if you like to call that.
43:01
And it was a wonderful conversation with him.
43:03
He was so enthusiastic about the C8 and he said, yes, yes, this is good.
43:06
This is good for all of us, all of us.
43:08
He said, so, you know, and he meant it.
43:10
Well, we have reached that point where I would like to turn the microphone
43:14
over to the ACO USA president, David Lowe, for a couple of words.
43:18
Andy, it's been an honor and a privilege to have you on tonight.
43:22
I personally enjoyed it.
43:23
Particularly this last part about sports cars.
43:26
I've been really pushing my wife.
43:27
I've told her, you know, I'm getting to that age that I'm probably capable
43:30
of driving a sports car more regularly.
43:32
Yes.
43:34
So I'll just tell her that Andy really suggests that I
43:36
go to look at one seriously.
43:38
Now, especially a Corvette.
43:40
Highly recommended.
43:41
Ben Keating has been a personal friend.
43:44
He's also one of our legends.
43:46
Just a wonderful guy.
43:47
Super, super nice guy.
43:49
I don't know him well, but he's such a nice guy.
43:51
Absolutely.
43:52
Andy Pilgrim, racer, educator, and journalist.
43:56
He continues his work in traffic safety.
43:58
He's a professional racing driver in series like SRO World Challenge.
44:02
He also writes vehicle test articles and creates video content.
44:05
If you want to catch up with Andy, be sure to check out www.
44:09
AndyPilgrim.
44:10
com for all the details or follow him on social media at Andy Pilgrim on
44:14
Facebook and YouTube, or at Andy Pilgrim number eight on Instagram and Twitter.
44:20
And on behalf of everyone here and those listening at home, thank you
44:24
for sharing your story with us.
44:26
We hope you enjoyed this presentation and look forward to more evenings
44:29
with the legend throughout the season.
44:31
And Andy, I can't thank you enough for coming on evening with a legend.
44:35
It's been an honor to call you a friend for over 10 years now.
44:38
I'll never forget the first time I got in the car with you.
44:41
And it's always great to get together and share stories.
44:43
Eric, thank you so much, mate.
44:45
Thanks a lot.
44:45
It's really been fun for me to go through this.
44:47
It's been a long time since I've had so much discussion about Lamar.
44:50
It's just been great.
44:51
Just churning things out of the back of my head.
44:53
It's awesome.
44:54
Cheers, mate.
45:06
This episode has been brought to you by the Automobile Club
45:08
of the West and the ACO USA.
45:11
From the awe inspiring speed demons that have graced the track to the courageous
45:15
drivers who have pushed the limits of endurance, the 24 Hours of Le Mans is
45:18
an automotive spectacle like no other.
45:20
For over a century, the 24 Hours Le Mans has urged manufacturers to innovate
45:24
for the benefit of future motorists.
45:26
And it's a celebration of the relentless pursuit of speed and
45:29
excellence in the world of motorsports.
45:31
To learn more about, or to become a member of the ACO USA, look no further than www.
45:37
lemans.
45:39
org, click on English in the upper right corner, and then click on the
45:42
ACO members tab for club offers.
45:45
Once you've become a member, you can follow all the action on the Facebook
45:48
group, ACO USA members club, and become part of the legend with future
45:53
evening with the legend meetups.
46:04
This episode has been brought to you by Grand Touring Motorsports as part
46:08
of our Motoring Podcast Network.
46:10
For more episodes like this, tune in each week for more exciting and educational
46:13
content from organizations like The Exotic Car Marketplace, The Motoring
46:17
Historian, Brake Fix, and many others.
46:20
If you'd like to support Grand Touring Motorsports and the Motoring
46:22
Podcast Network, sign up for one of our many sponsorship tiers at www.
46:27
patreon.
46:28
com forward slash GT Motorsports.
46:31
Please note that the content, opinions, and materials presented and
46:34
expressed in this episode are those of its creator, and this episode has
46:37
been published with their consent.
46:39
If you have any inquiries about this program, please contact the creators
46:42
of this episode via email or social media as mentioned in the episode.