Club Arnage

What was the loudest Le Mans car to ever grace the circuit? Many say it was the '91 winning 787B, but Racing For Holland was painful if you were up close when flat out this year. Any other guesses??

The 1998 Panoz GTR1 was I think much noisier than the one that was run last year!

That Mazda by far. People prayed for it to retire, so they could get some sleep.

When Panoz first ran in 97 they where the loudest cars on the grid by a fair few decibels, even louder than Mr Blobby who was helping to run the team.

A few years ago I went along to end of the runway at Heathrow, next to the perimeter fencing, and waited for Concorde to take off. It was quite a sight, seeing it approach head on along the centre line and lift it's nose. As it went overhead, I'm sure I could see the boogers up the captains nose. The noise was something else. It wasn't just in my ears, it was everywhere, I could feel most of my internal organs resonating, and a few reflex muscles were threatening to relax, in an old age pensioner fashion. The vibrating organ experience was quite interesting, but unfortunately not selective, even after a few more visits I was unable to 'train them up'. I still think there was potential there. Maybe if I had stood on a sonically reflective surface. A parabolic one would have been perfect, but what could I have put at the focal point?
I've never had the same aural experience at LM, although the Mazda did have a similar 'stinging inner ear' effect. The Panoz threatened to get the diaphragm going, but never quite made it. Over the last couple of years I reckon some of the 911 GT3's have been the cars that mde me jump most. There was a little bit of bleeding if I remember rightly, but as it wasn't my ears, I think I better leave it there...
H

1990, two in the morning, pit straight, brace of 787's neck and neck flat out, knitting needle in through one ear and out the other. Exquisite agony, it made the back of my throat itchy for hours after...

If we're talking quality rather than quantity, and to be honest, I struggle with both...
I've always liked the Panoz, it's just so macho, I reckon the cam covers must grow a stubble between pit-stops and need shaving. It probably tries to shag the Debboras on Friday night.
The 333SP's were fabulous. The Mazdas sounded great and sounded like they could rev like that all day, the Ferrari's however had that added excitement of sounding like they might explode spectacularly at any moment. The Astons in 88 (?) sounded fantastic flat out too. That 'Olive Garden' sponsored car made a nice racket, whatever it was.
Bottom of the list: the bloody Audis and that Taurus, not forgetting the joke Mig.
H

The Corvette's over recent years have made a great noise.

My money's on the evil rotary Mazdas too. Didn't see them at La Sarthe unfortunately but did in a 1000Km Group C race at Brands in '89.

Full chat up paddock hill and positioned about 10 feet away - enough already!!!

Fantastic.

I agree with you on the 333SPs H.
Dawn Sunday, Pit Straight, Screaming V12 echoing off the tribunes.  SWWEEEETT.  

I think these little buggers where the worst, Not as quick as a 787 so the sound lasted longer.
http://rupert8766.fotopic.net/p2763796.html

The BMW straight 6's in the M1 where pretty noisy as well

The best, has to be either this
http://rupert8766.fotopic.net/p2764450.html
or the TWR Jag V12's

89 for the Astons I think H. Yeah, they had a nice barritone, not dissimilar to the Panoz.

The Olive Garden car? Was that the Mafia entered car in which all the drivers disappeared halfway through the race?

Crap sounding cars? Well the Venturi's and pathetic 2 litre Peugeot/Renault? Spider thingies of the early 90s pretty much took the Coconut Creams for me. Still, at least they ensured there was still a grid in the dark years and for that I suppose we ought to be thankful.

Nordic, much as I worshipped them, I never thought the Jags sounded quite as good as they oughtto. Not loud enough unless you were standing right by when they fired up. The Sauber Merc was much better. Taxi!!!

I'll admit that I never heard the 333SP for myself. And I was still sleeping off many beers when the old group C's rolled around Saturday Morning. However, being the Yank that I am, the Corvette and Panoz V-8's make absolute music when they go by. Left no question as to what they were. To bad Panoz is leaving their LMP's for the Esperante. :'(

I think you may find Panoz will still be around next year, but running a French Courage Chassis with a V8 in the back.

Wow.....you mean that they finally figured that the last entry to win with a front engine configuration was in the early 60's with Ferrari? The odds were against them from the start. Gotta' admit, they gave a great effort, even winning a few ALMS races with Jan M. behind the wheel.

It's funny how most people associate a place along with the noise. Me too.
In my minds eye I recall the sound and sight of the Astons viewed from a pile of breeze blocks in a half built hotel next to the Mulsanne, with the sound coming through the trees, a sort of dopplered shade. The 333SP's are getting back on the gas after getting around Mulsanne corner. The Mazdas on the pit straight, with the noise bouncing around the grandstands and seemingly straight up my trouser leg, and the Olive Garden going brake-floor it-brake at Arnage.
The Olive Garden car was a Lola Judd V10 I think, I haven't heard the one about the drivers Andy, maybe the Italian sponsor had them whacked for a late debt or the wrong choice of pasta sauce.
It's from my Japs eye that I recall my testicles rattling in Hounslow.
H

Americans! Using a French chassis?! There'll be a diplomatic incident surely. What are they going to do, put it on the back of a flat bed transporter and fire it at the Palestinians?
H

The first year of the C5R Corvettes I sat high up in an empty stand on Thursday night and recall the noise echoing and reflecting within the stand.

The 911 GT3s can be painful on the ears when they change gear.  Particularly, standing on the infield just past the Esses on the run down to Tetre Rouge - ouch  :-\

Used ti live under Concorde flight path ( Slough ) and that made the fireplace vibrate !!


But the car thats made me want to go home was the Lister Storm , 1000kms, november 2003, stoof at the top of the main grandstand.

OUCH, and a 3 hour headache

By all accounts the 3 liter Matra's of the early seventies are the loudest machines to have ever graced the Sarthe, people still talk about fillings being rattled loose.  As for recent years, at Daytona you can stand right down next to the wall and I reckon the cars that hurt my ears the worst were the Porsche 911 GT3's.
John

Early Panoz wern't too discrete too

Opening laps of this years LMES at Silvertstone, about 10 Porsche's nose to tail on the start finish straight for about 5 laps. It wasn't so much the volume, but it was the constant pitch, you could almost feel your eardrums denting.

Good call Barry, the 10 Porkers at Silverstone hurt a lot at the start, I could still feal them on Sunday and Monday.

My favorate sound at LM was the LM Marcos. You could be sitting in your seat and just follow the car round the track by sound alone. Plus it made the ground shake.....

For me it's the Aston Martin of 89. Watching it on the pit straight in front of the grandstands the noise was loud but the vibration given out made me feel hungry. Strange.

Yup, me too. The beautiful, beautiful noise of that Aston Martin AMR1 on a trailing throttle and down-shift 'blipping', on the short-chute between the esses and Tetre Rouge was awesome.
The Saubers that won that same race were equally musical, aside from the 62 car that ran the last two hours of the race jammed in 5th gear. Even so, the torque produced, allowed that motor to pick itself up from about 600rpm at Virage Ford, to around 4000rpm by the time it rounded the Dunlop curve - very impressive.
Most annoying? That bloody Audi in 2000 that backfired at each shift point - it sounded like a gunshot every time it up-shifted. Pissed me off no end, it did.......  

Matt,
Would agree about the 2000 Audi's.  That backfire became annoying as hell.  First noticed it at Sebring that year and hoped that it was just something to do with the engine mapping for that race but it was there at Le Mans as well.
The most annoying exhaust note of all?  Current F1 cars!  That shrill, high pitched whine gets old real fast, especially when you throw in the pop & fart of traction control.  The IRL cars have a fairly annoying note as well, just sound rattley and cheap.
John

Sorry, bit off topic (what's new)

The Who, Charlton Athletic Football Ground, May 1976 - 120 dB at 50 meters from the stage  ;D

You won't get fooled again!

Two of our twits are Chartlon supporters and insist on singing, to the tune of Mull of Kintyre,  the following when drunk. It becomes most wearisome.

Valley Floyd Road,
Oh mist rolling in from the Thames,
My desire is always to be near,
Oh Valley Floyd road.

Far have I travelled
And much have I seen...
Blah blah blah...

Absolute crap!

1989 was the one and only year (and never again!) I took a bird to LM. She reckonned the Aston's noise got her all "hot" (for want of another phrase). I think she had a thing about Brian Redman too.

Anyhow, I loved them, they weren't quite on the pace of the Jags and Mercs but were just glorious cars. There was one for sale in Duncan Hamilton's shop window in Bagshot about a year later. It's a shame the program was killed off by internal Ford politics.

I remember the Merc stuck in 5th too. Wasn't it the Schumacher car?

That 1989 Aston is a lovely car.  There's one floating around over here and shows up pretty regularly at historic Group C/IMSA GTP meetings.  I've never seen it really given any stick though, probably couldn't afford to repair if shunted or blown.  The only ones you ever see really thrashed are the 962's.  There's enough parts still lying around for those to run them hard.  The Merc that was stuck in gear was the Mauro Baldi car but I can't remember off hand who he was sharing the car with, I don't think it was Schumacher though.
Fax

What about the NASCAR Camaros that graced the circuit in '81 and '82?

They certainly made the ground shake (along with any loose fillings) as they went by and you knew if they were still running from  back in the campsite.

Think they revved as high as about 4k before changing up.  I rember that they had dodgy brakes so were using the gears to aid retardation and eventually ran out of spares for the gear box.

They came out for the last 10mins and went round stuck in gear so they could be classified as running at the end.

Fax, Mario Baldy drove with Kenny Aitcheson and Gianfranco Brancateli that year and they came second, which is why I didn't think it was them. But I've a nagging feeling old Spoonface's car didn't finish the race, which is why I thought it was him. Anyone know?

Ok Bob, I know you're going to be disappointed and this isn't going to sound very gentlemanly but I wasn't even going out with her. She had a face like a pan of smashed crabs and an arse to match. I reckon the reason she felt "hot" was cos she was a big fat lass who sweated like a dray horse. She spent the most of the time moaning about the facilities and how far we had to walk to get around the curcuit and her feet hurt and she had a bad headache cos it was too noisy and her sinuses were sore cos of the dust and why wasn't there anything decent to eat and why are there were no showers and why couldn't we have stayed in a hotel and about another thousand pathetic complaints. It wasn't as if I hadn't warned her. She was morally appalled that me and my other mate ventured into the Striptent and to see the "Snakepit heroine addict girl".

I was absolutely furious with her after the race, the fat sow went wandering off for an hour to get Patrick Tambay's autograph for the sole reason that PT used to be a team mate of Didier Pironi at Ferrari or something. She knew full well we had to leave ASAP to catch the ferry from Cherbourg that night and if we missed it I would get the sack at work. Only my sense of responsibility to her mother stopped me from leaving her behind. Anyway it resulted in me driving like an utter lunatic and we were the last to get on the boat just before they lifted the ramp. God alone know's what I'd have done if we'd missed the boat, put her in a sack with some bricks and thrown her in the sea probably.

It is for this reason I swore never ever again to take a bird to LM. And I never have or will.

Hope this answers your question mate and sorry it wasn't more titilating.

Oh well, back to relying on BIGH for tittilation then

Hey Andy,
I did a little digging this morning.  It was the Baldi/Acheson/Brancatelli car that ended up stuck in gear. They began having gear selection problems with about ninety minutes to go and had enough of a lead over the third place Jag nurse it home.  I seem to remember mauro being in the car when the gearbox problems started because it happened right after ESPN TV's coverage resumed on Sunday morning (over here) with two hours to go.
I don't think Schuey took part in the '89 race, I think he was in the Mercedes "Junior Team" car in 1990 & 91 with Frentzen & Wendlinger.
Fax

Fax, youre of course right old boy. But the other guy in the Junior team of 91 was called Kreutzpointer or something of that ilk. Wonder what happened to him and the other two guys?

Must be getting senile, but did Sauber actually field a team in 1990?

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I truly believe that this is the funniest thing I've ever read in my life.  My colostomy bag just burst.   ;D ;D ;D ;D


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All this talk of Maro Baldi - I crossed urine streams with him at Sebring!

Ah yes Dave,
Peeing with little Italian guys in red firesuits.  Yes you can really get up close and personal at Sebring (or was it Daytona?)
Right Andy, Sauber-Merc gave the Sarthe a pass in 1990. They took part in the rest of the FIA Sportscar Championship and Schlesser was champ but they bailed on Le Mans, can't remember why off the top of my head but its all slowly coming back through the hops & bong residue.  I know Schlesser always hated the event.  I had one screw up in the last post, it was the Joest-Stuck/Wolleck Porsche that came third in 89 not the Jag. The Lammers/Tambay Cat was fourth.
John

Fritz Kreutzpointner is into lorry racing. He was European champion some time ago. Karl Wendlinger was driving one of the JMB 575s in the FIA GT this year.

As a 'newbie' I've enjoyed this thread, and FWIW, the last of the 333SP longtails always sounded 'musical' to my battered senses!
And the Panoz always made the best and 'rudest' noise ... must be too much Australiana V8 exposure over the years.
I missed the early 90s but just about any full on racing rotary can wring the wax from my ears and water from my eyes! :o

For me it has to be the 1999 Panoz.

1999 was my first trip to La Sarthe. I slept in the grandstand as I didn't have a camping permit, and by the end if the race I could tell without even looking when the Panoz came down the pit straight.

Gut trembling noise.

i fort that the taurus sport racing lola caterpillar was ear splitting. But the loudest cars i have ever heard are F1 cars. P. S. anybody know if Taurus sport racing or racing for holland have a web site.
cheers

Hi benely45, I think the official Racing for Holland site is here http://www.janlammers.com/

thanks mate bin looking every where for that site

I seem to remember the Taisan Porsche GT3 trailing around with it's exhaust hanging off towards the end of LM 2001. It made an even worse row than normal GT3s.

Or maybe my eardrums were truly shot by that point? ???

Don't know if it ever got to Le Mans but in '71 at Spa I was working for a guy called Jack Wheeler in the 1000k race on the pit wall, and used to watch for the leader and a Belgian entered Chevron B 16 fitted with a Mazda Wankel engine. The reason to watch for that was because you had to duck below the barrier and cover your ears as the noise was so intense.  I soon learnt that all I had to do was watch up the wall to see the rest of the pit crews duck, then I knew it was close and my turn to cover up!! Don't know what became of him but the first  driver was Yves Deprez and no idea if he or the car ever got to Le Mans.

wasnt that the year that Le Mans ran outside of the Group C championship - or something to do with the no straight may be longer than your bathtub or 2mile rule? ???

N.

I've heard the 787B and that is SICK!  8) :D but I've only heard the Matra's on the movie The Speed Merchants. Does anyone have a MP3 or WAV of them? They were fantastic and Cevert drove one  8)

Absolutely...  I'm giggling like a 3 year old... ;D

The smashed crabs thing was her happy face. You should have seen her when she was pissed off, which thinking back, that was most of the time. Her look of annoyance and disapproval gave her an appearance closely resembling a fox licking sh-it off a wire brush.

I can stand loud noise but the jet funny car doing the 1/4 mile at santa pod dragstrip has to be felt to believe!!!!!!!!!!! that is loud even with yer fingers rammed in yer ears :o ;D

Even though I've never been to LM I've experienced a lot of endurance races.
Spa is pretty good also. Like the exit of Rivage on the outside, or opposite to the pit exit.
No need to talk about the exit of La Source (I can't tell you how I got there and an amateur photographer ;) )

The 333SP's weren't that loud. But the sound was superb. I also noticed huge differences in the sound between those lovely cars. In ISRS there ran half a dozen of it.

The Panoz LMP-01 is probably on of the loudest I've seen.
Also a good call is the Jim Gainer Mugen.
The GT3 RSR's are may be not loud but they have a strange frequency that fight their way into the head :o (if you're 5m away from them)

But now being in my 14th year of watching races there's not much that impresses me.

The only thing were I covered my ears were the blowers during the German500.
Those pick-ups with a turbine on their back for drying/cleaning the track.
The Champcars themselves were pretty loud too, but it was rather hearing them all the time than their loudness. The turbocharger reduces the sound pretty much,