24h Le Mans, 1998
sportscarpros Gallery
No fizz....Didier de Radigues, Riley & Scott MKIII
Brabs in the Batmobile
Early action up front..........
Barrier to success........Johnny Cecotto in the BMW V12 Le Mans
Aguri Suzuki's Nissan R390 GT1 at the Ford chicane
Le Mans....France........Courage.........Elan........
Chamberlain Viper hot stop
Beretta in the ORECA Viper.....LM GT2
Privates on parade
A Saturday afternoon drive............down the Mulsanne Straight
Toyota on the Porsche Curves
Stuck in the darkness
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1998  the dawn of a new era

1998 was in Sportscar terms the dawn of a new era of top
line factory competition........or so it seemed at the time.

The beautiful, foolish episode of 3.5 litre Group C and the
period of austerity that followed in the 90's was
transformed by the arrival of the factories and the return of
supercars. These machines would excite the faithful in a
manner not seen since the great days of Jaguar, Sauber
and Porsche some ten years before and Ford, Ferrari and
Porsche twenty years prior to that.

The 1998 Le Mans rollcall of manufacturers, BMW,
Chrysler, Mercedes Benz, Nissan, Porsche and Toyota
backed up by the supporting cast of Courage, Ferrari and
McLaren was indeed a high octane mix giving rise to the
hopes that once again endurance racing could compete for
attention with Formula One on the world stage. Audi was
on the way to join the battle, the American Le Mans Series
would re-ignite the scene in North America, where would it
all end?

As we now know a combination circumstances ranging
from dot-com bubbles bursting to flying GTP cars ended all
but the efforts of Audi and their faux competitive brand of
Bentley (even the crew spoke German as a first language).
Dream over.

To quote the good Doctor.................

So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep
hill in Las Vegas, look West and with the right kind of eyes
you can see the high water mark, that place where the wave
finally broke and rolled back.............

Here is a glimpse of the time before the Fall.

John Brooks