Endurance vs. Long Races

The feature this month on the C-Type Jaguar which won the Le Mans 24 Hours in 1953, the car I drove at this year’s Le Mans Classic, gives me a chance to talk some more about long distance races. This year’s event was the only Le Mans that I really enjoyed. First of all, it was short and only took place during the day. Secondly, I was driving a jolly good car. Thirdly, it was always 24 hours before, which is not my idea of pleasure, especially since I consider myself a racer, not a driver. Although it was a great event, to me it was just another race and one that I disliked sufficiently to make it a separate deal in my contract with the companies for whom I drove, with the exception of Mercedes. I was happy enough to do it with Jaguar in the beginning, but as I got more “senior,” I said I would like to leave it out. I just didn’t want to do it. It wasn’t racing for pleasure, staying up all night in all weathers, sharing with another driver. That just wasn’t enjoyable. That is why this year’s event was! Having said all that, however, I did do Le Mans 10 times!

Endurance by its nature means long distance. The Mille Miglia was an endurance race but it wasn’t like Le Mans, and the Targa Florio; and though it wasn’t ever referred to as an endurance race, it was just that because it was long. But the difference with some of these was they were one-driver races. If I was driving on my own, no matter how long the race might be, I didn’t see these as endurance races, though it might take endurance to do it. My definition of endurance is that it is a shared drive, and I didn’t like sharing because I wanted to set the car up the way I liked it, and anything else would be a compromise. I have raced with some of the greatest drivers going, like Dan Gurney, and that I enjoyed. I would enjoy the fact that I was driving with somebody of his stature. But you make a compromise in many of these races, so instead of 40 or 50 starters, you are going to have eighty or one hundred starters, or even 120 starters at Le Mans.