Productivity is vastly overrated. I’ve been trying to put together the next #IAMTHESPEEDHUNTER post for the last couple of hours, but in-between sorting through the hundreds of submissions, I keep finding myself wandering onto YouTube seeking out another fix of speed. If I’ve seen this video once, I must have seen it a hundred times since I was a kid on a VHS my father had (and still has). I wasn’t even alive when Derek Bell piloted his 956 down the old Mulsanne straight (sans-chicanes of course) but that hasn’t stopped me trying to relive the moment on a regular basis. Prepare for your eyes to bleed as Bell absorbs all 3.7 miles of the famous Le Mans straightaway in little over a minute.
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Paddy McGrath
paddy@dev.speedhunters.com
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That was just insane! Sustaining a high rpm for so long must be torture for even the best on engines.
That was just insane! Sustaining a high rpm for so long must be torture for even the best on engines.
That was just insane! Sustaining a high rpm for so long must be torture for even the best on engines.
That was just insane! Sustaining a high rpm for so long must be torture for even the best on engines.
That was just insane! Sustaining a high rpm for so long must be torture for even the best on engines.
That was just insane! Sustaining a high rpm for so long must be torture for even the best on engines.
That was just insane! Sustaining a high rpm for so long must be torture for even the best on engines.
Incredible! It's easy to underestimate just what a challenge the Mulsanne was in cars of the time – there are plenty of contemporary reports from drivers saying that they just had to hang on and let the car do what it was going to do across the lumps and bumps and ridges cut by heavy trucks running the road for the other 51 weeks a year...
Anyone else seeing that 'Gran Turismo' feeling here? The way he passes the other cars on the straight just looks so easy, he even takes the hand off the wheel? LOL.
@Lastpilot
Well, can't compare completly, but I drive on the Autobahn here in Germany also usually with one Hand on the wheel (Sometimes even at far over 250kph) and pass cars just so. Might be very dangerous of course, but not that hard to do that...
People, that is the Hunaudières straight, Mulsanne is the one coming after the tight right hander after Hunaudières.
Here is some info:
The Circuit de la Sarthe, which is used in the sports car endurance race 24 Hours of Le Mans, features the long straight Ligne Droite des Hunaudières leading to Mulsanne, making a tight right hand turn before the entrance of the village itself. The famous straight is often called the Mulsanne Straight.
Greetings from Morocco.
@Olaf16 @Lastpilot In a 956 at roughly 100-120kph more than your 250? Don't think so ... and Mulsanne and Hunaudieres are in a way worse condition than the average Autobahn.
Ah, not quite I'm afraid. You are right that what most English speakers call Mulsanne is actually Hunadières, but that leads to the Mulsanne Kink, then the straight continues over the famous hump, then there's Mulsanne corner, which is the tight right.
The straight (actually more a very long curve!) between Mulsanne Corner and Indianapolis doesn't really have a name...
http://www.speedhunters.com/2012/06/temple-of-speed/
I don't know why but my heart was beating slightly faster at the end of the video. Weird.
in the 80's their was only one car pass the 250mph (the wm peugeot) the others "cruise" at 236mph, their is many stories about that straight, in the 50/60's some pilote light a cigarettes in the Hunaudiere (it was the only section were they can relax) and in the 70's pescarolo run the track by the night and under the rain...with no windshield wiper, their was a gas station along the straight back the day and some pilote "gently cheat" during the race.sorry for my bad english i'm french
Straightaway, Paddy? You've been spending too much time around Americans.
Not sure, but I think there was a video posted on SH with the Le Mans Mazda 787b doing a few laps on the same circuit.. I never get tired of seeing features like these. So sick!
SICK
Soooooo that was approximately 400kph?! In 1983? You can't beat the classics =)