|
|
So the 2013 Le Mans 24 Hours was under way, with
24 hours of hard graft ahead for drivers, teams and, let's not forget it, the
fans as well! But we had barely enough time to raise an eyebrow at the
opening pace of the Toyotas when the accident to the #95 Aston Martin of Allan
Simonsen occurred. Over the years we'd seen plenty of accidents in the
early hours of course, none more so than Allan McNish's shockingly violent crash
in 2012 and drivers walked away. The same year Mike Rockenfeller also had
a huge accident in another Audi. I think back to Win Percy's miraculous
escape from his Jaguar in 1987. They walked away. Sadly, the Dane
didn't survive this accident. I hope readers will forgive me, but I'm not
going to dwell on it here. Much has been said and condolences have been
properly expressed. As Jim Roller quoted on Radio Le Mans, motor racing is
that 'professional blood sport', but the fact is that we're used to drivers
surviving big accidents these days. My first Le Mans was in 1986, the year
of the last fatality in the race - Jo Gartner. In fact, James, Tony and I
were unaware of the outcome of Simonsen's crash, having not been listening to
Radio Le Mans at the time the ACO announcement was made. It was
Christopher (Kpy) who came over to us in the stand and asked if we'd heard the
news. Although I had assumed it was serious as we hadn't heard anything
encouraging, none of us expected that Allan would have lost his life.
Dreadfully, dreadfully sad.
We remained in the grandstand for a very long time, enjoying the
race as it began to pan out, notwithstanding the shock of the early accident.
But by the time we reached 7.50pm (yes, nearly six hours after we first sat down
in the stand!), we knew that it was time to stretch our legs and head off
towards Tertre Rouge where we normally greet the darkness on race evening.
|
