24 HEURES DU MANS | 4:02:00

A hair shy of twenty hours into a twenty-four-hour race, a punishing, rewarding test of man & machine, & only nine cars have retired, across all four classes. Sixty cars started the "Grand Prix of Endurance" on Saturday afternoon; here on Sunday morning, late Sunday morning in France, & fifty-one of those cars are still running. Astonishing! Methinks the cars are holding up better than I am.

Of all the fictional motion pictures I've seen about racing, far & away the best is Steve McQueen's Le Mans, though of course Le Mans is as much a documentary as it is a fiction, having been filmed during the thirty-eight running of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, in 1970.

A film I've not seen, but which has been on my mind due to the presence of the two Vaillante Rebellions, is Michel Vaillant, based on the comics series of the same name. In the film, Diana Kruger plays Julie Wood, a distaff driver. Diana Kruger is one of the most beautiful women in the world. How to make her even more alluring? Put her in a garment normally considered unflattering. Put her in a fireproof racing suit.

My mind is wandering. Is that wandering a distraction, or a necessary respite to help keep my focus?