1984 Le Mans

1984 — Stubbornness and tenacity come naturally to Britons. It must have something to do with living on a small, cold island. When Germans do it, the result is usually unnerving. When the French do it, it’s entertaining.

But the big news at Le Mans in 1984 were the American Jaguars from the stable of Bob Tullius’ Group 44, the "army of northern Virginia" as they were called by their American fans. Le Mans rules welcomed American IMSA GTP entries, and the voluptuous six-liter V12 XJR-5 Jags made a glorious noise and looked the part and summoned Jaguar fans to the Sarthe, even from England.

Tullius had entered cars for himself – No. 44 of course – Brian Redman and Doc Bundy. A sister ship was in the care of Le Mans vet Claude Ballot-Lena, Tony Adamowicz and GP star John Watson. There was a brand new XJR-5 spare on the top level of the transporter that went untouched.

The qualifying story was all Lancia. Team manager Cesere Fiorio came armed for headlines, high speeds and the very public obliteration of Jacky Ickx’s eye-popping '83 pole lap. His chief weapons were great big turbos and soft Dunlop Denlocs in place of the Pirellis that had carried his team to the '81 championship. He also had Bob Wollek who had his own Le Mans agenda.

Fiorio’s plot went almost as scripted. Wollek had the pole by 3.3sec from his teammates, who in turn were six seconds clear of the best Porsche and 16sec faster than the best effort from the disciplined Group 44 runners. But this actually made Fiorio frown: Wollek’s time was a half-second slower than Ickx’s ’83 record, and Brilliant Bob complained that every time he assembled a genuine flyer capable of erasing Ickx’s name from the top line of the record books, he tripped over someone waddling along between Arnage and the Porsche curves. No matter, said the press; the front row was all Lancia and deep Porsche after that.

Round One to Lancia. But the omens of the pole chase were evil to Fiorio who had been bested by the year old efforts of an absent Porsche works team.

Roger Dorchy was the winner of the coveted and meaningless first lap grand prix in his Peugeot-powered WM. Roger still holds the Mulsanne velocity record at something thin over 400kph, and he used the speed of his WM to pick off all the Porsches and Lancias to lead the first lap. This gesture of national pride, ego and testosterone made the tribune erupt with joy.

Wollek set things straight and got the lead back on the second lap. That lasted only one lap and Dorchy was back in front the third time around. He was clearly enjoying himself until his next pass down Mulsanne when the WM became unsettled under braking and went hard left into the barriers. The impact knocked off the nose and the promising battle for the lead was over. Dorchy made it back to the pits for a replacement beak, and Wollek fled from Vern Schuppan in the No. 11 Porsche and Stefan Johansson and Jonathan Palmer, likewise Porsche mounted. Schuppan’s Kenwood-sponsored 956 had come to him by the fourth lap, and he eased ahead of the Martini Lancia past the tribunes.

Hero of the first stint was perennial Le Mans player David Hobbs in the Skoal Bandit 956. The man from Royal Leamington Spa climbed relentlessly from 18th to sixth position by the time he made his first stop in the Porsche he shared with Bob Akin.

The No. 7 Pescarolo/Ludwig New Man Porsche from Joest Racing went the other way and dropped triple-Le Mans winner Henri Pescarolo and one-time Le Mans victor Klaus Ludwig to 29th place between the first and second pit stops. The Porsches were eating a tank every 40min or so, and any advantage to be gained by the American-based Jaguars team’s 50-min range had not materialized. Group 44 was sticking to a preordained pace of 3:42: the XJR-5s were easy and happy at 3:38. At least they sounded sweet and looked the part.

Through it all the Schuppan/Alan Jones/Jean-Pierre Jarier Kenwood 956 from chez Kremer dogged the Martini Lancia, and it was all good fun with a real race to watch rather than resort to an early walk about of the midway. Alain de Cadenet and Chris Craft were moving their 956 back up the order after a first hour fright when a front wheel came off the No. 21 956 on the especially brisk run to White House.

The lead battle refused to dilute let alone abate. The Kenwood 956 always with an advantage, though usually a thin one. As Schuppan moved to lap the bullet-fast WM of Mulsanne record-holder Dorchy, the WM spun right in front of the leader. There was no avoiding this mess. Ultimately the impact cost Schuppan eight minutes of pit time that was not in Kremer’s Le Mans business plan.

Lancia was best positioned to exploit this sudden development. Wollek and Alessandro Nannini led for the next four hours followed by their Lancia teammates Mauro Baldi, Paolo Barilla and Hans Heyer in the other LC2-84. This went on until the small hours of the morning, when they swapped positions to lead the printed hourlies through the dark time preceding the halfway hour.

The Lancias were never really far apart, and their pursuers were always close as well. The attention of the media was focused at the very front, where a miracle seemed to be congealing. Few expected Lancia to last this long and go this fast. A Lancia one-two was clearly a headline quality story with a few disclaimers lurking in the margins.

Outside the preoccupation with the relentless and obvious lead battle was the steady and terribly fast climb up the charts by the No. 7 Joest New Man 956 of Ludwig and Pescarolo. The Frenchman had won the last race of his Le Mans hat trick a decade before. He and Ludwig had qualified fourth, second best Porsche, but fell to 29th place just 5min into the race. It had been a hard slog to fourth place by the end of the 12th hour.

The No. 7 Porsche was one of only four to go to the line with just two drivers. The pounding of ground effects, the increased physical loads and the financial realities of Group C racing found most entries with three drivers. Reinhold Joest knew how these things worked and could speak to his people man to man about the realities of racing at Le Mans. There’s nothing like empirical experience, and Joest was a master of the stalking hunt. He knew it didn’t take three drivers if you had a good pair.

Just past half way, as the Lancias were looking their strongest, the No. 5 Lancia lost fifth gear. That promoted the No. 44 XJR-5 Jaguar into the top five, which was welcomed with greater significance than the elevation to third of Joest’s No. 7 Porsche bearing the potent pair of Ludwig and Pescarolo. Now No. 4 Wollek/Nannini Lancia led. It lasted. But there were nine Porsches in their wake.

The Jaguars raced no one but their strict plan and proceeded at their preordained pace in fifth and eighth. Then a throttle cable broke on the eighth place No. 19 XJR-5 with Ballot-Lena on duty. The Frenchman was able to make repairs and get the car back to Group 44 crew chief Lanky Fouschee’s men. It cost eight precious laps and was a preview of coming attractions for Lanky and the army of northern Virginia.

The American-built and designed XJR-5s were crowd favorites, and the long stop and subsequent descent down the order was greeted with frowns when the crowds came back to cheer for their boys on Sunday morning. By then the rot had set in through no fault of Group 44’s immaculate preparation. Adamowicz was hustling along with a cut tire in the No. 40 car when the inevitable deflation occurred. The XJR-5 smacked the Tertre Rouge barrier hard, but AZ was able to get the crippled coupe home with an oil tank was breached. Lanky ordered the Jag to the dead car park instead of squandering human resources on a futile rebuild.

With eight hours to go, the Lancias finally found trouble. A new turbocharger and a gearbox repair took nearly an hour and demoted Wollek to fifth. While Le Mans watched Team Lancia fight back, Joest’s stubborn two-man team of Le Mans winners – four victories between them – moved into the lead during the 17th hour.

That’s where they stayed. It was the sort of performance the Bentley Boys would relish. It recalled the almost mythical performances of Jacky Ickx. But there was nothing flashy in it. The Joest method was more science than art and produced better results than headlines.

Jaguar had impressed, but the surviving Group 44 XJR-5 went to the dead car park in the morning when the gearbox broke. Redman had just passed the 3.3-liter DFV-powered Rondeau of Sebring-winners Jim Mullen, Walt Bohren and Alain Ferte. The white Lee Dykstra-designed Jags remained fan favorites anyway. Beautiful cars elicit that sort of passionate support. Even today, the XJR-genus Group 44 Jaguars are revered by sports car fans and draw crowds when they appear at vintage car races and concours.

Porsche 956s filled eight of the top 10 positions. The Wollek/Nannini LC2-84 was eighth and the Group C2-winning Lola T-616 of Americans Johns O’Steen and Morton and Yoshimi Katayama 10th overall. It was a fine Le Mans for the new Lolas: Jim Busby, Rick Knoop and Boy Hayje was 12th in another T-616.

It was sober stuff for Lancia: the works cars were beaten by a fleet of private Porsches. Henri Pescarolo joined Olivier Gendebien as a four-time winner, subordinate only to Jacky Ickx. It was Porsches ninth Le Mans victory, and they now stood equal with Ferrari.

A marshal had perished in an especially ugly and fiery Aston Martin crash on Mulsanne during the early going. The finish had produced the bizarre spectacle of a dozen cars pulling up at the Ford Chicane waiting for the clock to strike 3:00, so that they would not have to complete another lap.

Ludwig and Pescarolo would have none of that. After a return from 29th position the pair won by just two laps.