24 Heures du Mans | 11:41:00
The halfway point of the race passed—the halfway point?! Le Mans is half finished? Great Caesar's ghost, but does time fly! Tempus fugit, a stark reality as well as both an exhortation to greatness & a dire warning that all is vanity. Anywho, the halfway point of the race passed under a full-course caution, once again caused by damage to the Armco barriers that line the circuit, damage inflicted by a single-vehicle shunt by a G.T.E. Am. entrant. All indications are that the driver, sixty-four-year-old Howard Blank, the oldest man in the field, is O.K., but after the death of Allan Simonsen all involved are understandably on emotional pins & needles.

Little has changed in the race—Audi holds a slight advantage over Toyota in P.1, Aston Martin holds a slight advantage over Porsche in G.T.E. Pro., Porsche & Ferrari are dueling like the ancient adversaries that are in G.T.E. Am., & the usual suspects are fighting tooth & nail in P.2. My beloved Corvettes are running seventh & ninth in G.T.E. Pro., the race-long dominance of the Astons & Porsches looking increasingly unassailable. Drat!

Pit reporter & '98 class-winning driver Justin Bell's annual walk through the drunken revelry away from the pit lane & garages was only mildly subdued by Simonsen's demise. Just as the race must continue to honor Simonsen's life's pursuit, so too much the celebration that is the24 Heures du Mans continue. To do otherwise would be to say that Allan Simonsen died in vain, which he most surely did not. "The paths of glory lead but to the grave," sure, but so do the paths of mediocrity; the motion picture Braveheart put it well as, "All men die. Not all men really live."

The Rebel Black Dot Songs of the Day
Michael Legrand, "The Race, First Laps" (from the score of Le Mans) via iTunes (T.L.A.M.)

Freitag, 21 Juni
Fountains of Wayne, "The Summer Place" from Sky Full of Holes (T.L.A.M.)

Commentary: To one who despises the Accursed Sun as does your humble narrator, it might be supposed that the summer solstice is loathed as a dark day. Not so. Instead, I relish the longest day of the year as the pride that proceeds the fall, for after this fleeting moment of triumph the Accursed Sun begins to lose its grip, little by little, day by day. From today 'til the winter solstice the hours of daylight grow shorter & shorter, the disc of the Accursed Sun sinks lower & lower toward the horizon. The Accursed Sun is undone in its celebrated moment in the sun, as it were. Bwa ha ha ha ha ha ha!