At this level, it’s a bit boring to make a basic assertion like “racing used to be really frickin’ dangerous,” however once in a while I’ll discover myself stunned by the completely insane issues race organizers used to make drivers do. Such as, for instance, starting an endurance race on public roads on the crack of midnight.
The 12 Hours of Reims was simply such a race, the type that solely the French had been actually wild sufficient to dream up. I first heard about this occasion in Cars at Speed: The Grand Prix Circuit, a 1961 guide by Robert Daley that touches on the historical past of the good Grand Prix circuits of the period, with just a few deviations to speak about occasions just like the Mille Miglia or the Targa Florio.
The wild occasion is talked about off-hand as a part of the bigger Grand Prix weekend: “If one cares anything about any of the drivers, one is likely to be nervous the whole time the race is in progress. Since there are always two races — a twelve-hour sports-car race which begins at midnight Saturday and ends at noon Sunday — this can add up to a lot of fingernail biting.”
The occasion in query was held only some instances, as soon as in 1926 and once more between 1953 and 1967, with just a few breaks sandwiched in between. In its latter incarnation, the race accompanied a Formula 1 occasion at Reims-Gueux, a treacherous triangular circuit constructed out of roads within the Champagne district of France. The monitor was over 5 miles in size, and it featured lengthy straightaways that might final for over a mile the place drivers had been anticipated to succeed in the utmost velocity potential of their automobiles.
Now think about doing that at midnight. I’ll let a Motor Sport Magazine recap of the 1964 occasion paint the image:
As the beginning was as a consequence of happen at midnight, headlights had been clearly going to play a giant half and the follow periods allowed a specific amount of operating after darkish, for electrical tuning functions. With the present-day GT Prototype automobiles on the very quick Reims circuit some outstanding lap speeds had been put up and the highest Ferraris and Lola-Fords had been all lapping at nicely over 130 m.p.h., and for the primary time for some years automobiles had been braking onerous going into the lengthy right-hand bend after the pits, and among the slower automobiles weren’t reaching a most velocity equal to the common velocity of the quicker automobiles, however fortuitously there was solely a complete of 37 starters, so the speed-differential downside was not as unhealthy because it might need been. The principal fear among the many quick boys was the Le Mans-type begin in the dead of night, and the opening laps, till they grew to become accustomed to the darkish.
You learn that proper; not solely did this race begin at midnight, however drivers had been required to start out “Le Mans-style,” which implies that the race really began with out anybody behind the wheel. Drivers lined up on one aspect of the monitor with their automobiles parked on the opposite, and when the flag flew to start out the race, all of them needed to run to their machines and get racing. That was a harmful sufficient feat at Le Mans, the place the race began at 4 within the afternoon.
It was much more harmful within the shadows of Reims. Even although the entrance stretch of the monitor was nicely illuminated with floodlights, drivers typically opted towards securing their security belts till they’d gotten up to the mark; the entire aim was to get out forward of everybody else, which meant there wasn’t time for piddling little security issues like seatbelts.
It’s onerous to think about what it should have been like behind the wheel, flying blind over the darkish, bumpy public roads, braking onerous for Reims’ tight corners, earlier than leaping again into the eye-searingly brilliant entrance straight.
You can take a look at some previous footage from one of many occasions on YouTube, which incorporates a number of drivers getting ready to take the beginning in the dead of night:
Oh, and should you needed to truly see a begin? Well, right here you go:
The completely insane occasion noticed some motorsport legends take victory, together with Graham Hill, Pedro Rodriguez, and Stirling Moss. The prize for successful the French Grand Prix was at all times fairly beneficiant; the general purse was the most important of the yr, and Robert Daley writes that look prizes alone may very well be $2,000 — or, adjusted for inflation at the moment, over $20,000. Further, because the monitor was situated within the Champagne district, there have been additionally loads of alternatives to win instances of bubbly all through a race weekend. Endurance races typically netted smaller winnings for its drivers, however on the vaunted 12 Hours of Reims, we will assume the prizes had been nonetheless fairly good-looking.
You simply, y’know, needed to begin your race in pitch darkness. No large deal!
Source: jalopnik.com