The more things change, the more they stay the same

North Bend, WA -- One of the driving factors for visiting the 24 Hours of Le Mans came from our appreciation of the Steve McQueen movie of the 1970s by the name Le Mans, a film that features the race more than the actors. (Above, Joe in front of a map of the track on site.)

The opening sequence of the movie shows McQueen in a cherry Porsche driving through the French country side to the track. At one spot he stops and in the background one of the other characters of the movie is buying flowers. It is very romantic. I wondered if the romance of this movie was created by hollywood or if this French ambiance was still apparent.


Well the truth is, as someone more sage that I once said, "The more things change, the more they stay the same."

The actual French countryside has not changed that much over the years. While the city of Le Mans has grown up, the surrounding countryside has stayed in general the same. Sure there has been development -- but for the most part it is still the countryside of France.

One of the things is that the track has changed with the times. In the name of safety and comfort the track has been updated since the movie -- and for the most part this is a good thing. Our time at the race course was simply too short to really get an understanding of the entire layout.

However there are two very good web sites that will assist you with better understanding the track. The first is from Wikipedia and will give general information about the track call Circuit de la Sarthe. Additionally, another pretty cool way to understand that more than eight mile long track is to check out the Google Maps view of the track.

One of the appreciations of this track is that over the 75 years that they have raced here, it has remained true to its original idea of testing man and machine over a 24-hour period of time. While the track has changed, it is still, at more than eight miles in length, one of the great challenges of a race car driver and a race car in the world today.

As we were heading for Paris on the way home, we had already started thinking about returning next year. I noted that mayhaps we should consider another city track -- Monte Carlo for the Formula One race. Joe responded: "Well dad, that is four hours and this is 24 hours. Monte Carlo is two miles and this is more than eight. This is a better bang for the buck."

You can see the differences in the track and the area over the last 30-plus years at a very nice site with the headline Le Mans then and now. As you can see while the track has been updated, as has the local area, it is still a race through the French countryside.

We hope that never changes.