1923 Le Mans

1923 — The A.C.O.’s radical idea for an endurance touring car race struck a nerve, especially in France. Of the 35 entries for the first 24 Heures du Mans for the Rudge-Whitworth Cup, all but three were French.

On the morning of May 26, thirty-three of the 35 entries received were presented: only a pair of Voisins failed to materialize. The Belgian Excelsiors had the biggest engines in the field and were assigned numbers 1 and 2 accordingly. This charming Le Mans tradition ultimately evolved into the practice of gridding all cars in descending order of displacement regardless of practice results. But for the inaugural 1923 event, the 33 cars were gridded on the main straight in order of entry receipt, with the six classes mixed regardless of performance. The 5.3-liter Belgian Excelsior had the honor of the being first car to wear the number 1 in the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

The flag dropped at 4:00 p.m.; almost simultaneously hail began to fall. The field sprinted off toward Pontlieue with the trio of Chenard-Walckers and the lone 3.0-liter Bentley already at the front.

The Duff-Clement Bentley was handicapped with two wheel brakes and was the sole car in the field so equipped. But Duff, Bentley’s London agent, had paid attention to the details of the 1921 Grand Prix de l’ACF over the same 10.726-mile Le Mans circuit. Emulating Duesenberg’s winning tactics, Duff’s 3.0-liter carried no spare tire and completed the entire 24 hours without a tire change.

His team manager, W.O. Bentley himself was, at 4:00 p.m., Saturday, not an enthusiastic Le Mans supporter, but had built a car with a low seating position, high scuttle and abbreviated windshield. Save the rear wheel-only-brakes, the design was perfect for the foul conditions. When the hailstorm receded, it began to rain. Duff, wearing neither helmet nor goggles, pressed on toward dusk in pursuit of the fleet duo of 3.0-liter Chenard-Walckers that had led from the first pass through Pontlieue.

By 7:00 o’clock the first pit stops began. The regulations specified just two drivers per car and just one could work on or service the car at a time. The majority chose to service the car before handing over to their partners. It was dark by 8:00 p.m. when Duff finally pitted the lone British entry, handing over to Bentley’s factory driver Frank Clement.

The electric lights along pit straight had come on and the first stylish evidence of race course hospitality was in full flower: Hartford, the British Shock premium damper manufacturer had created a hospitality suite under canvas tents in the pits. As the drivers pitted, completed their service and deferred to their co-drivers, they were ushered into the Hartford hospitality tent that quickly became known as the "Hotel Hartford". The shock absorber company fed the soaked and mud encrusted drivers roasted chicken, hot onion soup and bottles of chilled champagne (!) before bundling them off for a snooze.

The French cars led at the halfway mark (4:00 a.m.) and throughout the night until dawn. By 9:00 a.m. Duff was back in the Bentley four laps (over 40mi) down but pursuing the fleeing Chenard-Walcker duet with sufficient vigor to cause the French team to race even faster. The long night had been a trial for the electric lights and fuel tanks. The appalling track surface became a shooting gallery of small pebbles and rocks: lights were extinguished or destroyed outright by the flying stones. Many drivers ran off the road in the sudden gloom. Fuel tanks were breached and repaired. The lone Bentley lost a lamp to a barrage of stones during the night and the gallant Chenard-Walcker team offered its only true competitor a spare which was declined, it being decided that the repair would take too long. So Clement soldiered on with one lamp.

As the morning passed, Duff recorded a series of lap records and found himself between the leading Chenard-Walcker and its teammate, only to get into the Mulsanne corner a bit too deep and fast for comfort, resulting in a pass down the escape road. Others had tried to improvise the corner only to find the sandbank.

Just before noon, a telephone call to the pits informed W.O. Bentley that his London agent and driver was walking in from three miles out on the circuit. A stone had pierced the gas tank and the record-setting 3.0-liter was out of fuel. The competitors and the spectators assumed that this was the end of the Bentley and the best race on the track. But some field expedient tactics and a quick huddle with the officials saved the stranded Bentley.

When Duff arrived in the pits, Frank Clement set off cross country on a borrowed bicycle with spares, tools and a can of gas. His repairs took nearly two and a half hours, but the Britons earned the cheer that went up when Clement arrived in the pits in the number 8 Bentley, complete with the purloined bicycle in the back set.

With the pressure of Duff’s Bentley relieved, the Chenard-Walckers – though not officially classified as winners because of the Tri-Ennual Cup rules that would only declare a winner after three races – had covered the greatest number of miles. The Duff-Clement Bentley was never able to regain the lost time and tied a 2.0-liter Bignan for fourth. The whole obtuse notion of a race without a winner sent the rules makers back to their conference table for the 1924 round.

W.O. Bentley profited most, having sometime during the night become a Le Mans convert. He would return, and his car would have four-wheel brakes. It was, after all, not a fad or something just for a pure racing car like the Grand Prix-winning Duesenberg.

The experts who claimed that not a single car was sufficiently reliable to finish the 24 Hours were, as most experts ultimately are, proven wrong. Only three cars failed to finish; two of them little 1100cc S.A.R.A.s that were deliberately retired by their drivers who had become increasingly weary and miserable by the regular drenching and shot-peening by the faster, more powerful cars that lapped them relentlessly.

The spectators knew a winner when they saw one and anointed the Lagache and Leonard Chenard-Walckers as the winners of Le Mans (shown above at the Pontlieue hairpin), regardless of the arcane Rudge Whitworth Triennial Cup rules. And the French soldier, who loaned his bicycle to the Bentley team, had his transport returned with appropriate thanks.