This is the oddest 24 Heures du Mans in the five years I've been watching the "Grand Prix of Endurance." The race is proceeding well, & in that respect is much more normal than was 2013's tragic & pervasively strange Le Mans, but the experience is odd due to two factors: My busy
Regarding the former, for as long as I've been a fan of motorsport the 24 Heures du Mans was broadcast on Speed (formerly the Speed Channel, formerly Speedvision), "the Motor Sports Authority." Since last year's Le Mans, Speed has been replaced by a twenty-four-hour all sports channel, Fox Sports 1. Fox Sports 1 continues to carry a good deal of motorsport, & to do so better than the Entertainment & Sports Programming Network, & at least as well as the N.B.C. Sports Network, which has acquired one of Speed's old assets, the U.S. broadcast rights to Formula One. Between Fox Sports 1 (F.S.1) & its sister channel Fox Sports 2 (F.S.2), they are actually carrying more hours of the 24 Hours of Le Mans than was ever possible on Speed. The problem is that almost no one in American has Fox Sports 2 as part of their cable package, including your humble narrator. So, from now 'til 2:00 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time (07:00:00 remaining), the 24 Heures du Mans is on F.S.2, meaning there is no way for me to see the race on television. Drat!
Due to the pair of service commitments discussed below, I did not start watching the race, which began at 3:00 P.M. Le Mans time/9:00 Eastern, 'til 5:00 P.M. Eastern/11:00 P.M. Le Mans (16:00:00 remaining). My father & I watched the D.V.R. recording of the race through the end of F.S.1's coverage at 4:00 P.M. Eastern/10:00 P.M. Le Mans (17:00:00). The six hours time difference 'twixt Le Mans & Grand Blanc has always been disconcerting, with dawn coming in the middle of the night, but this year the disconcert is out of control. Things will be put somewhat to right when I resume watching the live race feed at 2:00, but then I'll have to learn the rhythm of a whole new race, as I'll have missed the entire night, all those glorious hours of driving in the darkness, when the French T.V. that provides the world feed restricts the number of cameras (more directly, the number of unionized cameramen) & pit lane reporter & former racer Justin Bell takes his annual tour through the drunken crowd in the wee small hours of the morning. All that will happen of course, but unseen on F.S.2. It's not a tragedy, but it is a shame.
The threefold battle for overall honors in Le Mans Prototype 1 (L.M.P. 1) 'twixt Audi, Toyota, & Porsche is fierce, though through the first seven hours of the race Toyota held the advantage of the dueling siblings from the Volkswagen Group. Things were even tighter in Grand Touring Endurance Professional (G.T.E. Pro.), between Corvette, Aston Martin, & Ferrari. Le Mans! Le Mans! Le Mans!
Urbi et Orbi*
First thing this morning, I joined several others in helping a fellow Knight of Columbus, etc., a fellow tethered to an oxygen tank who suffers mini-strokes with alarming regularity & whom we all fear is not long for this world, remove the largest items from his old domicile's storage shed, or "barn," & transport them to his new abode's garage. The et cetera is that I also know him from the Christ Renews His Parish (C.R.H.P.) retreat group & the Saint Joseph Covenant Keepers study & fellowship group, but principally I know Sierra Charlie as a brother Knight. After we finished, I repaired to the new house of Holy Redeemer's choir director & youth minister, also a fellow Knight, but in the two-plus years I've belonged to the Order I think I've seen him at a grand total of one K. of C. meeting; I know him principally as the choir director. His wife, Kinder, & he this very day moved house from Flushing to Grand Blanc, & invited seemingly everyone they know to lend a helping hand. I helped to convey large items from the U-Haul to the house & from the ground floor to both the upstairs & the basement. There were too many persons there & things would have operated more efficiently with fewer helping hands, but it was not my show to run. After that I patronized the green grocer, cleaned myself up, & settled in to catch up, in a limited manner, with the 24 Heures du Mans, already in progress.
*I considered classifying this bit under both "Urbi et Orbi" & "Project MERCATOR," but despite my personal fondness for both Sierra Charlie & Delta Sierra, the choir director, I realized that I'd assisted them, sacrificed what is for me the profanely sacred 24 Hours of Le Mans to assist them, not out of kithship or personal affection, but out of a sense of Christian duty. I had no valid reason not to help them, so I helped. I raged against the damnable timing that compromised this year's Le Mans experience, but I helped all the same. I have to learn to be a little more selfish, because lately I've found myself overcommitted at church, stressed out† by the overcommitments, & thus unable to give each commitment my very best, but for this year there was nothing else to do but what I did. Next year, though, the world can go to blazes, Le Mans will be for me an inviolate twenty-four hours.
†In this usage, "stressed out" is a euphemism for "pissed off." I'm not as angry The Last Angry Man as I used to be, so much better acquainted with Christ's peace have I become, but lately I've been angrier than I'd been for quite a spell.
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