Saturday, June 15, 2019

24 HEURES DU MANS | 16:07:00

Darkness has fallen at Le Mans. The Circuit de la Sarthe is illuminated principally by the headlights of the competing motorcars, beams of blinding light stabbing into the pitch of the Pays de la Loire. Most of the unionized French cameramen who feed the "world feed's" ravenous appetite for images knock off work & that same world television feed leans more heavily on in-car cameras.

This is one of my favorite times of the 24 Hours of Le Mans for two reasons: One, this is the first time of day that the time differential between Le Mans, Sarthe, France & Grand Blanc, Michigan, United States becomes viscerally perceivable. Yes, the great race starts mid-afternoon in France & mid-morning here in the States, but there's not really that much visual difference, at midsummer,between 3:00 P.M. & 9:00 A.M. But between 4:00-5:00 my time, when the sun first sets & then the darkness descends over the circuit, the oddity of the time displacement really sets in. This bemusing juxtaposition will grow more stark & disorienting around midnight here, sunrise at Le Mans. Oh, this is such glorious madness!

Two, again, the glorious madness: I've been watching motor racing all day, more motor racing than I've watched in any other day in 2019, eight hours of motor racing, & yet there are still sixteen hours of motor racing ahead. They've been racing for eight hours (most rounds of the World Endurance Championship are six hours in duration) & yet they have twice again that time left to go. Sweet fancy Moses! Ah, this is great!

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