Category: Le Mans

When Mercedes built flying cars

Yes, in 1999 Mercedes-Benz built a flying car for Le Mans. Well, in all honesty I don’t think they specifically made a wingless airplane, but that CLR took flight. Despite the horrific (and absurd) crash, Peter Dumbreck walked away unscathed, a proof of Mercedes ruggedness. Though maybe they should consider a built-in parachute.

PS: That was the second CLR to reach for the clouds at La Sarthe. During practice on the Friday of the race Mark Weber flipped car #4 🛫.

Ford GT: The Return to Le Mans

A couple of months ago Ford released in their YouTube channel the documentary “Ford GT: The Return to Le Mans”. In almost 80 minutes they talk about the whole project, from the original GT40 to the new GT project. And just as cool, you can see a lot of race backstage.

For a race fan this is a real treat, to the point that I downloaded it to watch on a big screen TV. And one last thing: guess what will be the next model review here at W-143? 😎

MOD – Porsche 550 RS Spyder #65

Since I just posted a charming 550A, I thought it was a good time to talk about the worse model of my collection.

With a spare model for parts, a sharp knife and some glue, I tried to make my 550 RS #65 a better model. The result? It still stinks 🤮. Oh come on, what did you expect? I was working with a turd. Only magic to fix that.

Still, the stench is not as bad now. Click on the link above to see the how-to and the finished excre… I mean, model.

When a broken engine can help you in a race

Le Mans, June 14th, 1990. Nissan Motorsports had three cars on the track, ready for the gruesome 24 hours of racing on the following Saturday, June 15th. Two of them were RC90CK and one was the older RC89CP. Mark Blundell was piloting RC90CK #24, and it was his turn at qualifying on that Friday.

Specially at high level endurance racing, there’s an equilibrium between raw power and engine lifespan. All cars can produce more power then what they race with, but their engines would not last the 24 hours. So essentially engines are detuned for reliability. However, unbeknown to Mark or the whole Nissan team, his engine was faulty. When he started his qualifying lap, the wastegate for his RC90CK’s turbo system stuck shut. That translated to instead of the optimal 700-800 hp normally produced by his 3.5-liter twin-turbo V8, the turbos were delivering in excess of 1000 hp!

Blundell’s qualifying lap in the “broken” RC90CK .

With that kind of raw power he lapped La Sarthe in an eye-watering 3m27.020s. Okay, but is that fast? If you take into consideration that the second fastest came a full 6 seconds (!!) behind, that’s unheard of. During that lap, on the Mulsanne straight he reached 383 km/h. As a comparison, the 2019’s pole position (Rebellion’s R-One AER #13) clocked 339.1 km/h in qualifying.

So unbelievably, a mechanical issue in your own engine can bizarrely be to your advantage 😲.