Better! The snow has frozen.

Worse: A pilot takes a formula car on a trip around the track and we can have a peek. No speed record for sure but a very unusual show.

But, when you’ve been using so much coke, you need to clean your car. Just don’t try to do it the same way as…

• piston going down to suck gas and air in
• piston going up to compress the mixture
• piston going down pushed by the explosion
• piston going up to push burnt gas out of the cylinder

Let’s admire the actual operation filmed at ultra-high speed from inside the cylinder:

Some of my figures:

• More than 600 exposed pictures
• 160 images after the first sort at high speed (to remove the obvious errors and gross misses) with around 80 which could be first choice pics.
• Less than 10 very good images.
• A few images which could be a little original.

Click on the thumbnail images to enlarge them
In the end, I can forecast who will win on Sunday:
Peugeot: End of the practice session:		Audi R15 in a unusual maneuver:

With the acquired habit, I can give a few recommendations to those who would like to try their own hand at it:

• Prefer the official practice sessions: All the cars are out, it is possible to walk around nearly everywhere around the track (during the race, your ticket will stick you to a specific location), the public is relatively limited and quiet.
• For the duration of a session (from 16:00 to midnight), you can easily walk from nice spot to nice spot from “Maison Blanche” to the “Dunlop bridge” for a good variety of situations.
• Monopod (or tripod) highly recommended).
• 80-200mm: very useful, 100-400mm: perfect range, but the limited aperture may be a strong constraint.
• Car speeds are very high. Even in the best conditions, under 1/500s, the photos may not look sharp enough; the faster cars will even ask for 1 or 2 stops over what you can allow for a GT car (the slower ones). Peugeot and Audi are really fast; Porsche, Aston Martin, Lamborghini may somewhat feel underpowered while driving at their max.
• Beware of obstacles: cranes, wire mesh fences, pro photographers are everywhere and you will need a large aperture to soften them out, but look for the openings in the fences which have been created for the pro photographers (look down a little).
• Autofocus: in continuous, 3D or AI-Servo mode. Or drop down to full manual and anticipate on the car position.
• Keep your eyes peeled: nearly every year, I witnessed a car leaving the track in front of me; But you will not have time to set things up. Shoot until the car is stopped or the card is full. You’ll sort later.
• Be aware of the signals used by the track stewards to anticipate interesting events: blue flag for overtaking (more dynamic shots), klaxon every time a car enters the pit area, etc.
• Have fun and remember to look, not only shoot photos.

Source: Autoblog.

But years of engineer’s work changed it all: Safety belts efficiently protect the passenger, airbags further reduce the risks, the compartment itself is nearly unchanged despite the huge energy to dissipate. This car passengers are protected despite the high speed and the shock violence:

so, everything is well in the best of all worlds? Maybe not. Standardized tests like those from EuroNCAP allow to directly compare cars and you can see differences. Huge differences. As if some cars were just coming straight from olden times.

Admire how these Chinese SUV and sedan will totally crush down (nearly exactly as if they were 1970’s cars, actually). The crash test is revealing: These automobiles may look like cars, they’re not; They should be compared to coffins.

So, progress or not progress?

However, my own experience with other car factories is that -even if they are not completely different- this is really slow manufacturing.

Dean Evans, in 1985 did much better than this in an Australian car race where all the competing cars were Lotus Elise: He went from the 16th and last position to the pole position within a single lap.

Watch this demonstration from a hell of a race driver:

Be ready for more than 90 minutes of broken WRC cars, or crash compilation videos.

Final note: Even if most of these crashes happened about 20 years ago (there are plenty of Golf GTI, R5 GT Turbo, 205 GTI, Fiat Uno, Autobianchi Abarth and others 1980’s cars), some of them have killed or maimed people. So, drive safely and use the highway.

 
Click on the thumbnails image to enlarge them

After looking at these images I shot myself, I advise you to visit the excellent web site of Thomas Baekdal about Le Mans.

24 heures du Mans, 2008.

And, while the weather seemed crappy for most of the day, we have an early evening with a superb light. I grab my brand new second-hand Minolta APO G 400mm tele-lens in order to move back and shoot over the metal obstacles (sometimes, under the up-turned corner of a metal net). Here is the result caught by my Sony Alpha 700, the best images I could catch in the stands: A place where there is always something happening -at least before the race itself.

 

 
Click on the thumbnails image to enlarge them

Some of these images can be acquired as posters or as laminated prints on RedBubble.

24 heures du Mans, 2008.

 
Click on the thumbnails image to enlarge them

24 heures du Mans, 2008.