I stood next to an idling Gulf Porsche 917 driven by Rodriguez at Daytona as a teenager. That car made your entire body vibrate...incredible!!!! I've never seen a better car...never

James Lebihan cool

Bill Moyer nice

I was at Le Mans 1987 When Derek won with Hans Stuck and Al Holbert. My wife bought me a lovely Picture of The Rothman's Porsche overtaking the Silk Cut Jaguar. over the hump. It's called Putting The Cat Out

@@fireblademan494 BOO - HISSSSSSSSSS! LOL

Of course, old guys rule! :)

@@sharpsdoublerifle1439 truth xD

He just looks fast.capable of evading high speed pursuit.

roconnor01 his son Justin is just as cool👍

I totally agree with you. Derek Bell is the coolest dude.

Although not many of us have the chance-or the nerve-to give our cars a little pat while moving along at 230+ mph!

I give the dash a pat or 2 too .. at 100 km/h. Can even pass it fx. at the parking lot and give the bonnet a swift little stroke .. or the "hip" (it's a XC90)

I’ve driven down the Mulsanne straight , 4 times now, super smooth tarmac, 3 rows of Armco, 130kph honest 👮‍♂️.. main road from Le Mans to Tours, well worth my detour on the 2000,Klm drive down to Spain

you prolly dont give a damn but does any of you know a way to log back into an instagram account?? I somehow lost the login password. I appreciate any assistance you can give me

@Kamari Leland instablaster :)

You forgot Jackie ichx,and pedro

As Jackie would say. "It's a great day for a motorcar race"

Jackie calls Gilles doing the most insane thing ever. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/h7Vll8aIlbabZYE.html

Hey, what about Jim Clark, Stirling Moss.

I would be absolutely terrified driving down the Mulsanne Straight at night even today. There are so many different classes of cars and so many drivers of differing skill levels. What would happen if some beginning Porsche 911 GT driver happens to move into the path of a 917 moving at a much greater speed? Yikes!

Especially the long tail version IMO. Spectacular!

Hot Wheels just made a die-cast version of the Porsche 917 LH Gulf livery (#18).

Coolest car ever!

That comes from the movie. A 917 in Gulf livery never actually won at LeMans. My favorite? The Martini & Rossi one, with the blue and white striping on the white or gray car.

@@Gooberwalla Wyer won 3 times though, one of those with Bell

962 was actually made into a street car

@@formbi Yep it was but for a street car it was a tad confined. And it cost a measly$1,000,000 dollars. Beautiful car,even had a suspension would lift over bumps to get up driveways.

Bell loves the 956 and 962 but as Le Mans cars they seemed somewhat boring.

IFM what was it actually? A 7 Km stretch?

@@stephanesmith9391 les hunaudieres. Check it out

That and taking off on the space shuttle or an F-16.

IFM whiteknucklin for miles.

@@stephanesmith9391 Mulsanne was about 3.5 miles long. The chilling part is to consider that the Mercedes cars that flipped over backwards weren't going that fast and they were running after the chicanes were added to slow things down.

Hartley has only 1 le mans win but 2 WEC titles

Doh! Of course '15 + '17 WEC - '17 Le Mans win

Not trying to discredit Hartley but last year was his first win at Le Mans. (Although he did also take the WEC title as a result)

Absolute respect.

jiff jiffernson : as the results of this year's Le Mans has shown, it is a lot easier for an F1 driver to drive an LMP car than the other way round. Hartley is good but will never be an F1 contender.

dgwachtel I am soooooo jealous of you.

Was curious to know, Dave. Which car did you eventually pick? Or did you not end up buying one? Either way, would be nice to hear what happened after that day!

Sorry it took so long to reply. There were several Brabham BT-28 and BT-28/35 cars that were for sale. I worked out a deal with Low Cost Racing for a BT-28 which was partially updated to BT-35 specifications. The BT-35 had saddle fuel cells, different bodywork, larger brakes and wings. Believe it or not, I bought it on "layaway", sending what I could afford to LCR each month. Eventually it was paid for, loaded on a freighter as on-deck cargo and picked up at the Port of Newark. You can see a photo of this and most of the other formula cars I've either owned or driven on my facebook page and Google Plus (until they kill the servers). In one of the photos you can see the replacement wing I fabricated to replace the original fragile wing. Unfortunately, I didn't really have the funds or the expertise to run the car properly. That was a real pity as it was fantastic to drive. Drifting the high speed corner on the hill at the old Bryar Motorsports Park was always great fun. What a fantastic track that was and totally ruined by the NASCAR "upgrade". I had a bunch of top five and top ten finishes with it and won a race at Watkins Glen. If I knew then what I know now the mechanical problems with the clutch and motor would have been solved and results would have been much better. Back then getting help with a formula car was difficult indeed. I ran the car for a few years until going back to university. When I returned to racing after college, SCCA Formula C had become prohibitively expensive so I switched to Formula Ford. In the late '90's we had huge fields and there was always someone to race with. Not so today. Too bad. I was planning to turn semi-pro in the SBR Pro series when I ran out of funds. I did a test day at LRP and was quick enough for fifth on the grid. But that's a whole 'nother story. I kept all my cars until I had to sell them one at a time to pay the bills. I had wanted to restore the Brabham and race it in vintage events but sold it and my old Cooper T76 to a restoration shop. Got a fair price for these cars so at least that was something. - Dave

This is quite the story to read - sorry to hear you had to sell these cars off, but it's understandable due to the costs of how everything runs these days. How was racing in Formula Ford? What sort of expectations did they have for you? On another note, it's unfortunate you did run out of funds - it seemed you had a promising future. These cars sounded quite fun to drive as well, I'd love to be behind the wheel of one of them, but once again the money is a massive driving factor and it's sad to see that most people have to pay their way in rather than being picked up for their talents. What cars do you own now? And what do you do this current day? I'm really interested to learn about all of these things, haha. Don't worry about the long reply, it's fine. I'm glad you got around to responding in the end!

Fantastic. I always love the reality stories of racing. What one will do to get on the track...the telling of which, could still get one arrested.

That he certainly is. Unfortunately, that majority of those of us who remember him well, are aging just a wee bit along with him. Hopefully, the younger crowd will find these video interesting bits of automotive history.

Balls of steel

furyofbongos lol as soon as you have to start allowing for tire growth you know you’re going fuck-all fast.

In Australia, we call that fuck-off fast.

Lol like a top fuel drag car

That's the legendary Norbert Singer, so legendary the best 911s in the world bear his name on the badge.

@ tayf85: No, we don't say that here; Australia is a fucking Nanny-State where hardly anyone has the balls to go over 60kph. sorry to say.

Thanks for the insight comment! Which speeds did the C2 category cars reach there?

and it's GLORIOUS

They wouldn't be competitive. The older cars could reach tremendous speeds and they took advantage of the longer straight on the Mulsanne. Todays cars have much more downforce and grip. It would be lights out for the older cars. That doesn't mean they weren't fabulous.

Robert Vander Voort And the fact that todays cars have beaten the lap record WITH the chicanes.

Robert Vander Voort Obviously the ball has been moved forward in every aspect. That said, current prototypes come no where near 250 in FIA trim. I would also like to check some race distance and speeds. I think you'll be surprised..

emerckx53 - Top speed isn't remotely everything. The top speed is a function of gearing and drag. The straight has been divided in two with a chicane. There are also various rules in place which no doubt have an effect on top speed. They may not be coming that close to that top speed, these new cars are way faster around the track anyway. Look at the times. The top speed is inconsequential. One of those old cars- truly spectacular. They would have less straightaway to take advantage of and be slower around every single corner. This is a road course not a drag race. The current cars are lapping at a faster pace despite the lower top speed. The older cars simply wouldn't stand a chance in today's field, ASAT.

Robert Vander Voort all that said, what do you think would happen if you kept accumulating an extra 20-30 plus miles an hour for one minute in the Mulsane straight of new cars raced in the old track configuration? I agree, newer LeMans cars are state of the art and technology does not move backwards! But, would new cars do just as well with a more street /road dedicated track? Put them in in the old school tire compounds! I don’t know! Apple and oranges that looks so appetizing