Auto Racing: Turbine on the Hell Circuit

AUTO RACING

The “24 Hours” of Le Mans is the world’s most famous auto race—and nobody is quite sure why. Perhaps it is Le Mans’s history of death (more than 100 fatalities in 43 years), perhaps because it is so brutally long. Frenchmen call it La Ronde Infernale (“The Hell Circuit”). Pro drivers hate it: the 8.3-mile course is monotonous, and amateurs are allowed to compete, a fact that makes the coolest pro perspire with fright. The only man who really enjoys Le Mans is Italy’s crusty old Enzo Ferrari, whose cars have won the race five times in the past six years.

Last week’s Le Mans was true to tradition. Brazil’s Bino Heins, 28, was killed when his French-built Alpine skidded on an oil slick, clipped a fence pole, spun into a ditch, and burst into flames. The fastest car in the race, a prototype 4.9-liter Maserati, led for the first two hours (averaging about 120 m.p.h.), then pulled into the pits, and was not seen again. The U.S.’s Phil Hill, driving an Aston Martin, topped a hummock at 150 m.p.h. to find a car rolling over and over directly in front of him; swerving off the road to avoid a crash, Hill damaged his gearbox beyond repair. When the checkered flag finally fluttered, only 13 cars, out of 49 starters, were still running. And the winner was a rear-engined Ferrari, driven by Italy’s Ludovico Scarfiotti and Lorenzo Bandini, who covered 2,832 miles at an average speed of 117.9 m.p.h. The next five cars were all Ferraris too.

The most interesting car was not officially in the race at all. Carrying the number 00, it was a jet—a British Rover-B.R.M. experimental gas turbine, competing for the special $5,000 prize offered to the first turbine car to average 150 k.p.h. (93.2 m.p.h.) for 24 hours. Its kerosene-fueled engine measured only 30 in. from air intake to exhaust, developed only 150 h.p. (45 h.p. less than a Chevy V-8), ran so quietly that it got a nickname: “The Silent Specter.” It had only two gears, forward and reverse, and the “freewheeling” engine (turning between 30,000 and 70,000 r.p.m.) provided no slowing effect on corners, putting a fantastic strain on the brakes. Nevertheless, the car never even needed a change of tires; and Britain’s Graham Hill, the 1962 Grand Prix champion, who shared the wheel with the U.S.’s Richie Ginther, completed the full 24 hours at an average speed of 108 m.p.h. for seventh place overall. Said Hill: “Just like a Sunday afternoon drive with my family.”