24 Heures du Mans | 19:52:00
The first stint of Speed's television coverage covered the first four hours of the "Grand Prix of Endurance," & I now sit at my Macintosh with Le Mans streaming on another tab. Holy smoke! To this point in the 24 Hours the brand-spanking-new Toyota TS030 petrol-hybrids are running second & third, ahead of both Audi R18 Ultra turbo-diesels (the evolution of last year's race-winning R18) & one of the two Audi R18 e-tron Quattro diesel-hybrids; the № 1 R18 e-tron Quattro, driven by last year's race-winning trio, is leading, but the Toyotas are gaining. The TS030 wasn't intended to compete at the Circuit de le Sarthe 'til 2013, next year, but after last year's devastating earthquake & tsunami Toyota decided to advance the schedule as a morale-boosting & confidence-building exercise. Certainly the TS030s have not yet endured Le Mans, there are almost twenty hours to run, but I am still surprised by their pace & reliability. Audi v. Toyota isn't just environmentally-friendly hype, this race 'twixt corporate giants (Audi being a marque of the world-spanning Volkswagen Group) is for real!

In G.T.E. Pro, the leading Corvette C6 ZR1, the Aston Martin Vantage, & a rotating cast of Ferrari 458 Italias keep trading the lead, the legion of Porsche 911 GT3 RSRs being oddly out of contention. (There are no B.M.W.s this year, all of Bavaria's resources being focused on its new campaign as the third marque in the D.T.M.) Man, oh, man, how can these cars still be so close together after four hours round the French countryside? This is bananas!

O, how I love the 24 Heures du Mans!

The Rebel Black Dot Song of the Day
Michel Legrand, "Le Mans: The Race, First Laps" via iTunes (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: Music from Steve McQueen's amazing motion picture Le Mans.