All Episodes

December 3, 2024 46 mins

Tonight, we have an opportunity to bring a piece of Le Mans to you, sharing in the Legend of Le Mans with guests from different eras of over 100 years of racing. 

Andy Pilgrim, whose resume includes wins at the 12 hours of Sebring, Petit Le Mans, the Rolex 24, GT races on 5 continents, the Pikes Peak Hill-climb, NASCAR and 6 finishes (with 5 podiums) at the 24 hours of Le Mans. He is best known for his days racing with Team Cadillac and Corvette Racing and we’re honored to have him with us tonight to share his stories about racing at Le Mans.

===== (Oo---x---oO) =====

00:00 Meet Andy Pilgrim: Racing Resume and Early Career 01:40 Starting in Endurance Racing 02:20 The Firestone Firehawk Series 03:59 Building Endurance and Racing Skills 07:18 First Experience at Le Mans 10:19 Challenges and Learning at Le Mans 17:32 Transition to GM and Corvette Racing 24:09 Rivalries and Racing Dynamics 24:57 Racing Rivalries and Challenges 25:25 Corvette's Journey to Success 26:56 Technical Evolution and Engineering Insights 31:52 Le Mans: The Mental and Physical Challenge 35:46 Racing in the Dark and Rain 38:21 Reflections on a Racing Career 40:04 The Future of Sports Cars and Team Corvette 43:10 Closing Remarks and Acknowledgements

====================

The Motoring Podcast Network : Years of racing, wrenching and Motorsports experience brings together a top notch collection of knowledge, stories and information. #everyonehasastory #gtmbreakfix - motoringpodcast.net

To learn more about or to become a member of the ACO USA, look no further than www.lemans.org, Click on English in the upper right corner and then click on the ACO members tab for Club Offers. Once you become a Member you can follow all the action on the Facebook group ACOUSAMembersClub; and become part of the Legend with future Evening With A Legend meet ups.

Mark as Played
Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Evening with the Legend is a seriesof presentations exclusive to
Legends of the Famous 24 Hours ofLe Mans, giving us an opportunity
to bring a piece of Le Mans to you.
By sharing stories and highlightsof the big event, you get a chance
to become part of the Legend of LeMans, with guests from different
eras of over 100 years of racing.

(00:34):
Tonight, we have an opportunityto bring a piece of Le Mans to
you, sharing in the legend of LeMans with guests from different
eras of over 100 years of racing.
And as your host, I'mdelighted to introduce.
Andy Pilgrim, whose resume includeswins at the 12 hours of Sebring, the
Petit Le Mans, the Rolex 24, GT raceson five continents, the Pikes Peak Hill

(00:56):
Climb, NASCAR, and six finishes withfive podiums at the 24 hours of Le Mans.
He is best known for his days racing withCadillac and Corvette Racing, and we're
honored to have him with us tonight toshare his stories about racing at Le Mans.
And with that, I'm your host,Crew Chief Eric from the Motoring
Podcast Network, welcoming everyoneto another Evening with a Legend.

(01:17):
Andy, welcome to the show.
Thanks so much, Eric.
It's really a privilege to be here.
It's an honor to be here.
Thank you.
For those of you that don't know Andy'sorigin story, we encourage you to check
Break Fix podcast episode number 136,where we covered his story in detail
from those early days of autocross,to the Renault Fuego Cup racing, to
Firestone Firehawk series, and allthe way up to what you're doing today.

(01:40):
But before we jump right into your LeMans story, tell us about how you got
into endurance racing, because thoseother series that I mentioned were
just stepping stones into endurance.
Was it always your goal tobecome an endurance driver?
When I started in a series likethe Renault Cup series, you
could buy the car for 6, 500.
You could actually drive it to theracetrack because they were street

(02:02):
legal and maybe six or seven of us usedto drive the cars to the racetrack.
I did the West Coast Series first.
It cost me 6, 500 bucks second hand andI could just about sleep in the car if
I needed to, maybe get a cheap hotel.
That's how you kind of start.
To move up, I didn't have a sponsorand I certainly didn't have the budget.
Luckily, when I sold the car, got the 3000for the car, I bought two rides in what

(02:25):
was then the Firestone Firehawk series.
And that bought me two weekendsin a Pontiac and that was in 1986.
It was gosh, there were probably50 cars in the Grand Sport class at
that point, which was the top class.
And we ended up getting a coupleof top 10 finishes, the gentleman
driver who owned the team and myself,he wasn't a bad driver at all.
You know, he sort of said aftertwo races, nice job, we'll

(02:46):
see you again in a few weeks.
And I said, well, probably not becauseyou know, I only managed to buy the
two weekends because he wasn't managingthe team, somebody else's managing it.
And so he said, Oh, well,okay, Andy, it's been fun.
I got a call literally on the Tuesdaythe following week and it was him.
And he said, Hey, can youget yourself to the races?
And I said, yes.
And he said, look, for the rest of theseason, I'd like you to be my teammate.

(03:09):
And if you can get yourselfthere, that would be wonderful.
And if we can do that,does that work for you?
And I said, ah, yeah, it works for me.
That's great.
And that's how I got in, but really andtruly getting into an endurance series.
And there were so many teamsfrom the touring car class.
To the sport class to the grand sportclass at that point, sometimes over
a hundred entries for race weekend, alot of us had that opportunity to get

(03:36):
a little bit of money, get a weekendor two and try to get into a series.
And there were enough gentlemen driversaround at the time, cause you didn't
need 5 million to do the series.
It was a great place for me to get in.
It was really economics.
And the fact that there was so muchopportunity for me to be able to get
in and the Firestone Firehawk serieswas just a great series at that
time, just not super competitive,but the opportunity was there.

(03:57):
That's why it was really economics.
In that 10 year span between 1986and the Firestone Firehawk series
up until your first time at LeMans, obviously you got more and
more involved in endurance racing.
How did you physically have to changeyour driving style, building up the
tolerance to do endurance racing?
Was it something that you got moreand more, let's say, conditioned to?

(04:18):
I was an athletic kid.
I was not an Olympic athlete, buthigh school, I would play soccer.
I would play cricket, play tennis, playrugby for my school, all kinds of stuff.
I was an athletic kid.
Driving gave me the, youknow, you get car fit.
Do you know what I mean?
It's like you don't have tonecessarily as a race car driver
look like an Olympic athlete.
Yeah, I'm fit, but there's a lot ofguys that may not look the fittest guy

(04:41):
in the world, man, they are car fit.
What I needed to do understanding theracing was there was a mental side of it.
In endurance racing, sometimesyou do a stint and then you
have to do another stint.
Because somebody is either not readyor somebody gets sick or something
like that, especially in the 24 hourraces of which there were quite a few
between the world challenge series andalso the Firestone Firehawk series.

(05:04):
There were a lot of 24 hour races.
And sometimes honestly, if youhappen to be the quickest guy on the
team, you would get an opportunityto run potentially like 10 hours.
12 hours because they would justkeep putting you back in the car
because you were making time up oryou were holding position better
than somebody else might have done.
And so that conditioning in those carswas something because there was no

(05:27):
AC, there was no real thought aboutgetting air in the car, they were hot.
Yeah, that was a verygood training ground.
They were street tires.
To start with in those series,like shaved street tires.
So the grip levels, there wasn't reallya tremendous amount of downforce.
And it was actually Tommy Morrisonin the Corvettes later on.
I got into a car in the early nineties,91, 1991 from the endurance racing in the

(05:50):
Firestone series or the world challenge.
Tommy, John Heinersey, DonKnowles, people like that.
We were given an opportunityto run with Morrison.
I started understanding how to runon slick tires, and then the World
Challenge, it got a little bitmore serious, where you had front
diffuser and you had a rear wing.
Lo and behold, we were talking downforce.

(06:10):
And suddenly the setup of which Ihad become quite known, I guess,
as being a setup person, I couldrelate well with engineers.
And my background is more physicsand computer science, if you like.
And I made it my business.
And you know who told me that?
It was Rob Wilson, the legend in mymind, Rob Wilson, the coach to F1.
Rob told me when I was at Miami1988, and I was running there

(06:33):
and I was just talking to him.
And he was very, very straight guy.
You know, he's always smoking ona cigarette and stuff like that.
He's just a brilliant guy.
And he said, you know, Andy,he says there's 20 guys in any
series that are really quick.
He said, you don't have a budget.
We were talking about things like that.
He said, make sure youreally understand cost setup.
And I made it my business from thatpoint to understand cost setup.
And that's a big deal.

(06:54):
And it's understanding that difference.
So there's the mental side, there'sthe car fit side and things like that.
But it was those yearsgave me that opportunity.
And you've mentionedsome of your colleagues.
There in that part of your story.
And you also made friends with folkslike Johnny O'Connell and you ran with
Tommy Kendall and all these other namesthat we know from this side of the pond.
That graduating class of drivers.

(07:15):
I mean, you saw them everywhereand all sorts of different races.
How was the deal constructed thatyou ended up going to Lamont?
There's a lot of peoplethat hope and pray.
And one day I'll get there and it's abucket list thing, but you got there
not once, but six times, but thatfirst time is always the toughest.
How did you get to Lamont?
The weirdest thing was that there wereteams looking for drivers and they had

(07:36):
to have some kind of funding, but alsoif you were somebody that had a resume,
then you could bring a sponsor and youcould then give a little bit of money.
And they would give youa potential opportunity.
I had a couple of friends inEngland, and one of them basically
told me that this in 1996, the newhardware team, they had a spot.

(07:57):
And if there was a little bit ofsponsorship, then you could bring that,
then there was a potential opportunity.
I spoke to Bill Farmer, very,very nice guy from New Zealand.
Bill and I spoke, and we cameup with a deal for me to be
able to do the race in 96.
And that's really how it started.
But my resume at thatpoint was really important.

(08:18):
The fact that I'd driven on slick tires,I had a little bit of experience with
Porsche, thanks to super guy, you mayremember Larry Schumacher, Larry gave
me a first opportunity in 1995 in a 911.
So the timing was perfect.
I mean, honestly, I dreamed about,Oh, I'd love to sit in a Porsche one
day, just because the legend of thename of Porsche, and he gave me that

(08:39):
opportunity and I drove with himin 95, a few times that all helped.
The fact that I had 911 experience,even though 96, the car was a
twin turbo, wasn't the, uh, theGT3 type car, the GT2 class.
It wasn't like the GT1 car, twinturbo Porsche, which I drove in 1997.
Those things were ridiculouslyfast there, especially at Le Mans.
They were, they were so muchmore horsepower, you know.

(09:01):
Coming up through Firestone,Firehawk, driving a Pontiac.
You got your firstexperience with the 911.
Had you driven a Corvetteyet by that point?
Yeah, 1991, Tommy Morrison, cause hewent from the Camaros to the Corvette.
And if you remember, the LotusHead ZR1, that was the first car
that Tommy made into a GT car.
In fact, one of them is stillin the, uh, Smithsonian, as an
example of an American GT car.

(09:22):
I don't know if it's on permanentdisplay, but it was on display
for quite a few years, and I knowit's still with the Smithsonian.
And that was one of Tommy's cars.
That was the car I drove,actually, that the Smithsonian has.
Did that leave a lasting impressionfor you, Corvette and GM and all that?
What did you thinkcomparing it to the 911?
It's so different because even thoughthey were sort of in the same class
early on like that, the Porsches werea more complete race car at that time.

(09:47):
And the Corvette was like, we're takinga street car, a very much a street car.
And Tommy's crew tried tomake this thing into a GT car.
But it was still extremely heavy.
There was no way they could get itdown to the lightweight of a 911, a
tailor made GT car, if you like, rightfrom the factory, it was different.
You had to drive it differently.
The Porsche was much more nimble, yetthe Corvette was pretty fast on the

(10:10):
straights, you know, and things like that.
So first impressions are everything.
So you get to Le Mans.
Yes.
And you're no stranger to endurance racingat this point, Rolex, all these others.
But Le Mans is something different.
It's grand just in the lapitself, let alone everything else.
So what were your firstthoughts when you got there?
How were you received?
What did you think aboutthe Circuit de la Sarthe?

(10:31):
It's hard to describe, butthere were no simulators.
I had looked at a map.
I really had no idea.
It was awe inspiring.
The thing that struck me the firsttime out was finding my way through the
Dunlop Bridge, down to Tetrouge, andout onto Tetrouge, going down towards
the first chicane, because we had the,the chicane's already there, obviously.
And it was just like, whenam I going to get there?

(10:52):
It's like, you know, thestraightaways on normal road courses.
These things are twice as long eachtime before you get to a chicane.
They're twice as long.
So I'm like going down thisthing and it was just that.
And then it's like, so you come throughthe chicane, you figure out the chicane.
come out and then there's another one.
It was just the immensity of the track.
And it was like you were, you wereleaving a racetrack, you know,

(11:13):
the Bugatti circuit, you leave theBugatti circuit, and then you go onto
the back and it's like, you know,you're going off to see grandma.
Here we are out in the country, youknow, it was just an amazing experience.
I did three laps total in practice,four maybe, before the race started,
because they didn't have all the moneyto fix the car, they didn't have engines.
And honestly, that was the deal.
It was like, we do as fewlaps as possible, you'll

(11:35):
learn it through the race.
Stefan Noateli was with me as ateammate, and also Andrew Bagnell, who's
a gentleman driver from New Zealand.
Now Stefan was really quick.
I mean, the kid was an F Formula driver.
He won Le Mans overall with AlanMcNish, I think in 99 in the
GT1 Porsche, maybe 98 actually.
But it was just an amazing experience.

(11:56):
I, I had such a smile on my face.
It was such a smile on my face.
And once I'd done those three laps,then it was get your book out, write
each corner, visualize each corner,try and remember each corner because
you're not going to get much time.
Then I got three laps in night practice.
I had to learn the track as best I couldbecause night practice is pretty serious.
You've got to do your lap, soyou need to finish, but you also,

(12:17):
I wanted to get my speed up.
And I kept getting faster each lap,even though it was only six laps, I
got to a respectable place, not asquick as Ortelli, but not that far off.
And it was like, I could do my job.
It was hard work.
I mean, I really worked at it to tryand make sure that I was doing it.
I was playing it out in my head,visualizing parts of the track,

(12:37):
visualizing another part of thetrack, realizing the parts where I
could really lose some time, otherparts where I could make time.
It was a fantastic experience.
And one of the things I often think wetake for granted in thinking about races
like this is there's a lot to it whenit comes to traffic management as well.
And you running in the GT class, you'vegot at the time, the prototypes and some

(12:58):
of the faster cars up on top of you allthe time, and in 1996 and 97 and so on.
You're there with other big name drivers.
Like Mario Andretti was therewith the courage team in LMP one.
So what was that like?
You're trying to learn the trackand manage all of these bees that
are buzzing around you basically.
Absolutely.
And you know, what really helped thefact that I'd done enough racing and

(13:20):
touring cars in the Firestone series.
60 70 percent of the lap, honestly,in a touring car in the series, you're
in a Honda Civic Si, and you're upagainst Camaros and Pontiacs with
much greater straightaway speed,possibly 40 or 50 miles an hour.
Well, guess what?
It was similar there, butjust at higher speed overall.
And you're running 60, 70 percentof the time in your mirrors.

(13:40):
So I was really comfortable withusing mirrors and the Porsche does
have pretty good rear visibility.
It's not like suddenly you'regoing into only rear view mirrors.
You have the rear view mirror and thatexperience helped a tremendous amount.
So 1996 was the only year youdidn't podium out of the six
times you went to Le Mans.
So you finish, you've got allyour notes, the race is over,

(14:01):
everything that happened in 96.
How did 97 happen?
Did you just get a phone call again andsay, Andy, we want you back in the car?
Yeah.
And again, it was like, okay,not the new hardware guys.
They only went there theone time from New Zealand.
It was a big New Zealand operation.
It was super to be part of it.
But then I was looking to dosome more racing in Europe
if I could possibly do it.
So I had a little bit of sponsorshipthat I gained and I was really

(14:24):
trying hard to figure it out.
Well, a Porsche factory connected teamwas the Rook racing team and the Rook
racing brothers out of Poland, Germany.
I called them and asked, you know, ifthere was any chance of doing something.
put together a deal for Le Mans.
I mean, it was fairly close to Le Mans.
I wasn't sure I was going to be ableto do it with them because people
have more budget and things like that.

(14:45):
But essentially that's what happened.
And their car was a little bitdifferent to the new hardware car.
It was a little more prepared.
If you like, it was a lighter, atleast it felt lighter to steer the car.
When I went back, I was instantly on pace.
Pre qualifying was a big deal back then,of Olivier Barretta and Wendlinger, and

(15:05):
those people were in the, the Viperswere there then, the factory team.
And also, like, Jean Pierre Jarrier wasin a Porsche there, the Formula One guy.
And at pre qualifying, I can stillremember, I put a pretty good lap
together and ended up being onpole for pre qualifying, ahead of
Barretta and, uh, Jean Pierre Jarrier.
And that was a big turning point becausepeople started, who is this guy, you

(15:29):
know, this American slash Englishperson, but it was the big turning point.
More things that came after, you're goingto ask me about anyway, came from that.
My time at Le Mans, we almost won.
We had a turbo failure withinthe last hour of the race.
That cost us enough time that weunfortunately finished second.
That first year, I think working ashard as I did to memorize, figure it

(15:51):
out, work on things when I wasn't there.
And when I came back, I was ready.
And I didn't have a simulator oranything like that, but I think
you can do a lot of visualization.
If you make good notes from thetime, contemporaneous notes really
help you come back to that moment.
I was just.
Chewing over my notesbefore I got there for 97.
And I was very happy with that.
I think Andre Alla and Bruno Eichmann,who was a Porsche Carrera Cup champion.

(16:15):
He was a extremely quick guy as well.
So I was really, really happywith that deal because it showed
me a progression, you know.
And you're very humble about that secondplace finish because it's actually
also a 10th place finish overall, whichis nothing to shy away from as well.
So it absolutely amazing.
One thing on that, which I just rememberedwas we lost the power steering with eight

(16:37):
hours left to go and they never got fixed.
And that made it tough.
And it's really funny how some ofthese stories very much parallel with
other drivers, because as I thinkback, we had Rob Dyson on and he
talked about studying Brian Redmond'snotes and getting all this information
for other people and the same thing.
They had turbo issues with the956 and they limped it to the

(17:00):
end, but they placed well, thereseems to be this common thread.
Absolutely.
You've just, you've got to finish.
You gotta finish.
And that's just part of it too.
You know, you talked about pre qualifying,and how well you did, and where you
were against everybody else, but we allknow the race is not won in turn one.
It's a 24 hour race.
There's a lot to get done.
Yeah, some drivers seem tohave a hard time learning that.

(17:25):
1997 and then we've got a bit of athree year gap and then you start
to put on the GM racing suit.
Your whole career changes from that point.
You get instantly recognized iconic cars.
Not only the Corvette number three thatyou shared with Dale and Dale Jr at Rolex.
But also the Cadillac you droveand all the other things you've
done with GM over the last 20 plusyears, how did we get to GM in 2000?

(17:49):
And what was it like being part ofthe birth of team Corvette racing and
Jake and the C5R and all this wholenew program that they established?
Okay.
So they were looking for drivers,obviously, as they put the program
together, Ron fellows, John Heinersee, and I think Chris knifel also.
But mostly Ron and John Heinerseywere involved in the development

(18:12):
of the car from like 1997, 98.
And I got a call halfway through 1998from Doug Feehan, not with an offer per
se, it was like, do you have an interest?
If we can put something together,something Corvette related, and
we'd like to put your name in thehat if you're interested, and we're
going to be doing endurance races.

(18:32):
You'd be doing the long races nextyear if it all comes together.
And I said, of course, I'd be super happy.
That came from the guy that wasrunning and working with Pontiac.
When I started running with thePontiacs, there was a connection
with Pontiac factory there througha gentleman called Gary Claudio.
And Gary was a manager at General Motors.

(18:52):
He was responsible for the dragracing part, but I think they
sort of moved him to the roadracing side when I was at Pontiac.
And we became friendly at thattime, but Gary was such a great guy.
And I genuinely believe that Gary was theperson that said, Hey, we should give Andy
Pilgrim a shot to try out type of thing.
Cause it was one of those thingswhere you're going to try out.
Then they had tryouts at Rotorlantain October, November of 1998.

(19:18):
And that's the first time I drove the car.
And there were two cars there.
And funnily, at that time, PrattMiller really didn't exist in a way.
It did, but it was really small.
There were probably nine guys thereor 10 guys there with Gary Pratt.
So the other car wasactually run by Bill Riley.
Riley Engineering ran the secondcar, even though they were
both cars under GM, obviously.

(19:38):
At that time, Gary needed help,and so they brought in, uh,
Riley to run the car in 99.
So, I was running the car that wasbeing done by Bill Riley, and Ron
Fellows, and Kneifel, and John Paul Jr.
was the other one that was on that car.
And we had, on Heinrich C,we had Scott Sharp as well.
So that's kind of how that started.
We had to do a test at, uh, Road Atlanta.

(20:00):
That's how that started.
Now there was no Le Mans in 99, becausethey were putting the car together.
They were doing the research, doing thedevelopment work through that whole year.
And again, Ron Fellows had donemost of that development work.
That's where it started.
But driving with the Porsche, havingdone Le Mans, the Le Mans thing
was thought about at that time.
Maybe that was part of it.

(20:20):
Because I had done Le Mans twice.
Ron had never done it, andI thought never done it.
They had Justin Bell comingas well in the other car.
John Paul Giugni didn'trun Le Mans in 2000.
So we had drivers, FrankFreon had run Le Mans.
He was in our car.
And I was the one that told Feehan that,Hey, you should consider Callie Collins.
Kelly and I were friends and hetried out and he did a super job.

(20:41):
So it was Kelly, Frank,Freon, and myself in our core.
Kelly did such a super job thathe was your teammate for the next
three Le Mans after the initial one.
Absolutely.
As was Frank.
And then Ollie Gavin came in, I think.
Yeah.
You got your first taste ofCorvette with the C4 base ZR1
before you started with the 911s.
Yep.
But now the C5R, totally differentcar, totally different engineering.

(21:03):
It's a devoted race team.
They're really trying tobuild a program around this.
How does the C5R compare tothe 993 base GT2 911 that you
had run at Le Mans previously?
Oh, well, first of all, the Corvettesacceleration and the downforce was
significantly more, significantly more.
So you had to get up to speedthrough the Porsche curves,

(21:24):
for instance, that was big.
Tetra Rouge, although it wasalways bumpy, that was a corner.
Dunlop curves was always kindof small, the S's after Dunlop.
That was a place also wherethe downforce had an effect.
I had to work my way up because it waslike, okay, this is a lot more downforce.
And you've got to be carefulbecause obviously we had crashes
at the Porsche Coupes throughoutpractice and everything else.

(21:46):
There's always issues there.
So you have to really haveyour game together and learning
that the sound of the car, thePorsche was loud, but not really.
The Corvette was deafening.
The funny thing when we werefirst there in 2000 with the
car, the cars were on pit lane.
My car was on pit lane first and we weresitting there ready for practice to start.

(22:07):
And then I'm thinking, wow,there's a lot of people around now.
I didn't realize that they have somany people are allowed around on pit
lane and things like that at the time.
And a ton of journalists were aroundthe car from wherever they were.
And a lot of the French people, someof the officials were there probably
from ACO was standing there andthe car was completely surrounded.
And they said on the radio, okay, fire itup and the car, you fire it and turn it.

(22:31):
And then the exhaust pipes, you know, uh,this thick, you know, this, they round.
And when it goes, it's bah, bah, and itjust bop, bop, bop, bop, bop like this.
And everybody around the car jumped.
And then it was all these bigsmiles, like, Oh, Magnifique,
you know, it was super.
I mean, they was likegoing, Oh, this is superb.

(22:51):
You know, you could, I could seethem all talk and I was like, great.
It was so cool.
I was being the first one in the car.
It was so cool because prepractice hadn't quite started yet.
So you had had some seat timein the Corvette because of ALMS.
What was it like turning your firstpractice laps in the C5R at Le Mans?
Well, it had been three years sinceI was there because it was 2000 and I

(23:14):
remember that I was sort of told fromthe gearbox in just be easy with the
gearbox, be easy with the differential.
So actually I got to do somelaps at a slower speed because
of running that stuff in.
And I was really glad I had becausethey gave me two laps to run everything
in and then I came in, then I couldgo out at full chat and I was on it.

(23:34):
Just sighting at a slowerspeed made a big difference.
But what struck me immediately was thebraking because you could brake so late,
you know, we had a lot more downforce.
I mean, honestly, some of the Porschesat the end of the straightaway, you could
catch them coming onto the straightawayand then at top speed, you'd be basically
at the same speed as some of thePorsches that were not in your class.

(23:54):
It was amazing because they have justso much less drag and less downforce.
But then you go into the brakezone, they might brake at a 300
and you're braking at like 175.
So you just fly to the brakepoint, you know, and then the
prototypes are going to the 100.
So it was, it was crazy.
It was really crazy.
You've talked about Viper.
Yes.
You were in the throes of what Isaw at the time as one of the more

(24:15):
interesting rivalries, because thePorsche Corvette rivalry has been
around since the beginning almost.
Certainly in the street car sense.
Yeah.
For sure.
But Viper versus Corvette at LeMans in ALMS and all the series.
What was that like going headto head with Viper teams?
They were the world champions.
They'd been world champions in 97.
They were champions 98 andthey were champions in 99.

(24:37):
And in 2000, it was like, here they are.
They're still the world champions.
And we knew that we were against it.
We really were.
I mean, the Viper wasquick on the straightaways.
They weren't as good asus through the curvy bit.
Um, I had some goodbattles like early morning.
I think it was like fiveo'clock in the morning to like
seven o'clock in the morning.
I had a really good battlewith one of the Viper drivers.

(24:57):
I forget who it was, but we had areally good run and he would just
kill me on the straightaways throughPorsche curves and all the way
through the start and finish line.
I could make it back up.
It was getting really old.
And then as my tires went off, Halfwaythrough, I couldn't do it anymore.
And he was just pullingaway at that point.
But it was tremendous.
And they had tremendous support.
But they were just so together.

(25:17):
I think we did a prettyfair job, honestly.
But they were the mark to beat.
They won Daytona.
They won Sebring.
They won Le Mans in that year.
We got our first Corvette win in Texas.
But the one after that, wegot Petit Le Mans in 2000.
And that was actually stopping themgetting their four big ones in one year.
Took from 99 all the way to the endof 2000 for us, literally two seasons,

(25:39):
really, to get to where they were, youknow, I heard a conversation that had
happened between the ACO and I believethe Corvette team at that time manager was
talking about it and said, so there's somuch faster than us on the straightaway.
I said, yes, yes, we've beentalking to ACO about it.
And the ACO gentleman official, hesaid, You have to work on your car.

(26:01):
You are just coming here.
They are four years in theirdevelopment work on your car.
And it was like, okay.
All right, fair enough.
That's what it was.
We knew we were up against it, but,uh, we did the best we could, and
there's really not a comparison betweenthe Porsche because of the downforce.
The straightaway speed, yeah, at theend of the straight, was similar,

(26:21):
around 185 to 190 miles an hour,power drag related, but the cornering
speeds were totally different,the braking points were different.
Because of the downforce.
So no balance of performancefor you guys that first year.
Yeah, it was actually great.
I mean, it was, it was all good.
You still podiumed, you came in third,and then the three subsequent years,
second place every time with the Corvette.

(26:42):
So when you look back at that fourth timewith Team Corvette in the C5R in 2003,
and you look back at 2000, four seasonsprior, now you've got those four years
under your belt, just like Team Viper did.
How much had the Corvettechanged in that time?
It had become better becausethere was an update on the car

(27:02):
that gave us a bit more track.
And also we had the gearboxbecame a transactional gearbox.
That made a big difference as well.
So the things that were coming.
Along from the engineeringside made a huge difference.
It wasn't that the car was anyquicker on the straightaway.
It wasn't, but it just becamemuch easier to manage it.
We needed less drag sowe could use less wing.
If you like, we create less downforce andwe still had a little bit better aero, but

(27:26):
the King of aero was still the Ferrari.
I think that Lamont was crazy.
The Ferrari that we ran againstlater, 2001 to that thing
was fast in the straightaway.
It was crazy.
I think 311 kilometers.
I mean, they were closeto 200 miles an hour.
It was crazy.
They were fast.
And that was the 360Modena chassis, I believe.
I think it was.
Yeah.
Talking about that initial timeout with the C5R was how you had

(27:49):
to sort of bed the car in, youknow, let everything come to temp.
You got your sighting laps in slower.
It reminds me of a theme thatcomes up with every driver.
Like we said, you don't win LeMans turn one, it's a 24 hour race,
but there's also multiple drivers.
So one of the things thatit's super important is the
concept of mechanical sympathy.
Reliability of the vehiclesalso really, really important.

(28:10):
And you've got a new car on a new chassis.
It's untested, right?
No turbos to worry about, likein the 911 that would fly.
fail, but did you have any issues withthe Corvette or was it knock on wood,
just reliable all the way through?
There was some issues along the way, butnothing that was a nagging single issue.
There was one point whereI think it was a sump plug.

(28:32):
Somehow somebody maybe gone over acurb or something and something was
leaking underneath and they realized.
That it was a plug, oneof the mechanics, genius.
So once they realized what it wasand they pulled out the piece, they
realized there was negative vacuum.
So they basically put somepacking material on the outside.
They stuck it there.
And basically, as long as the car wasrunning, it pulled it in and it was

(28:55):
like, it was solid enough and it fixed itfor the whole rest of the 24 hour race.
I remember that the suspension say solid.
I mean, the thing was built.
Because I think Pratt Millerknew enough about the Daytona
and Sebring in particular.
Le Mans doesn't beatthe car up like Sebring.
Sebring is ridiculous.
So I think when they built thecar, they built it really tough.

(29:15):
And the gearbox, yes, there was noreal issue with the gearbox at all.
But once we got in the transactional,it was just a better shift.
It wasn't like an age pattern, which itwas initially, it was an age pattern.
And then it became moreof a sequential pullback.
And then of course, later becamethe paddles with the C6R, which
I drove just one time in 2007.
So why does your LeMans story stop in 2003?

(29:37):
Why didn't you go back?
That'd been moved to Cadillac.
Cadillac wasn't going there, right?
They gave me the opportunity to drivethe Cadillacs for another, gosh,
10, 11 years, which was amazing.
But we didn't go to Le Mans, right?
So they had Corvette drivers there.
And I was now a Cadillacdriver, if you like.
Any opportunities I had at Le Manswith another team had to be approved.
And there was one year inparticular I had a chance to

(29:58):
go, but it wasn't a GM vehicle.
And I would have beenrunning in the same class.
against the Corvettes, not that theywere worried about me specifically.
They didn't want a GM driverdriving against the GM car.
It was as simple as that.
So it was something that I'd done.
I didn't have the wherewithal.
I didn't have the context topotentially set that up again.
It was just the reality.
I didn't.
Obviously, I was busy in the Statesdoing the series that I was doing

(30:21):
with Cadillac and things like that.
So had you had the opportunity tocampaign the CTS V, how do you think
it would have fared at Le Mans?
That's a great question.
It was a lot more complicatedthan the Corvette.
It was a great sprint race car, and it wasreliable for most of the time, especially
the first generation and second generationcars were quite, quite reliable.
The car would have done well,but it didn't have the downforce.

(30:42):
It wasn't set up to be a highdownforce car in World Challenge.
It wasn't really until 2011 12when the first generation of
Amoligated GT3 cars came out, andit was a whole different world.
And the second generation Cadillachad to compete a year or two
against those first gen GT3 cars.
And it did a pretty fair job up to 2014.

(31:03):
But you can get a good idea howit would have done because we were
running against the Porsche, wewere running against Ferraris, we
were running against those Vipers.
That car did a pretty good job.
So in World Challenge car, itwas very similar at that point
to a GT3 car, or the cars that wewould have been competing against.
In 11, 12.
So I think it would have done well, butit wasn't designed to do 24 hour races.

(31:24):
It was a more complicated car.
If things went wrong,it wasn't a quick fix.
The Corvette was built more todo quick fixes and the Cadillac
certainly wasn't that way.
It was, I mean, the engineers aretelling me that I didn't work on it,
but they told me there's a lot, youknow, it takes a while to do things.
And I, obviously there'sno reason to go prototype.
Sure.
The prototypes were therein 2001, 2002 with Cadillac.

(31:46):
That's a whole different class.
Yeah.
But for another GT car to gothere, I can understand why that
wouldn't even been on the cards.
So a lot of drivers have said thatLe Mans changed them, them personally
changed their driving style.
They learned a lot.
You know, there's manychallenges to driving at Le Mans.
What did you take away from Le Mans?
How did it change you?
You look at physical racetracks.
Sebring is a physical racetrack.

(32:08):
There are tracks that are physical andthere are tracks that are not so physical.
But Le Mans, for me, I started usingthe word, it's a mental racetrack.
And I don't mean mental bythe fact that it's nuts.
I mean mental by the fact thatyou can easily lose concentration.
And it's a strange place becauseyou're in the lights when you're
in the Bugatti area, and you'recoming through there at night.
In particular, night iswhat I'm gonna really say.

(32:31):
There's 55 cars on the track.
If you have like a restart, atthe time, you know, you'd have a
restart after a yellow or something.
There were three pace cars.
In 1996, For instance, I was on myown, literally on my, I mean, I could
barely see lights behind me and Icould see nothing in front of me.
And there were two instances where itwasn't like I lost concentration by any

(32:51):
means, but my perspective wasn't good.
I was coming out of the second chicane atMolson and I was like coming towards where
you have the hump before you cut intoMolson corner, the right hander there.
And I'm coming along and beforeI can see the horizon of the road
because behind it is an orange glowthinking like something's on fire.

(33:14):
I can understand that.
So I'm concentrating on this orangeglow and I'm doing 185 miles an hour
close to it and I'm coming up there.
I'm in left lane because I'm comingup to a right hand corner and then
I notice, luckily, there was aguy with a standing on the white
line in the middle of the road.
And I'm on his left, and he'spointing, go around me this way.

(33:36):
I had perspective on the orangeglow, and I almost missed him.
And it scared the bejesus out of me.
And I missed him, and I went over the top.
I was still going way quick, but I was offthe gas, obviously, going over the top.
And this car was just an Inferno.
It was a GT1 Porsche.
I think it was actually theFrance Conrad car burning up.

(33:56):
You're thinking, God, did someone crash?
Is everybody okay?
You're going by and then you're stilldoing 160 and suddenly you've got
to go into Moson corner and you'relike, Hey, get your head back.
It was a real huge wake up call.
Those things, when you're goingthat fast for that long, and
especially at night, that changein perspective, boy, it woke me up.
I realized that you cannot relax.

(34:19):
You cannot relax because strangestuff happens in the dark and it's
so, so dark in the back there.
There's no lighting whatsoever.
It's amazing.
And the same thinghappened later in the race.
And when I was coming up to Indianapolis,and again, you know, coming out
of Mulsanne Corner, all you do iscranking it up all the way as fast
as it'll go towards Indianapolis.
You have the little kink, thenyou have the look slightly bigger

(34:40):
kink, but you can still do it flat.
And I'm coming up to the secondkink, and it just goes uphill very,
very slightly, and the barrier isquite close to you on the left.
And in my lights, I just saw somegrass, just grass floating in the wind.
I suddenly went, whoa,and I got off the gas.
Because I thought, I don'tknow, I don't see anything.
And I went around the next kink, and therein the middle of the track, on the left

(35:04):
side, where I was, was a car sideways.
And I was like, jeez LPs.
And they had just happened,and they didn't have flags out.
Somehow I missed it, because I gotoff the gas enough, and I moved
the car to the right, and justmissed the front of this guy's car.
And it was sitting there, he done,just done a big spin, he must have
dropped a tire off or something.
Again, it was like twice, andthat was two different stints.

(35:25):
And it's a, you know, it's a shortnight there, and I did two nightstints
that race in 96, and it was like,oh, you know, this is crazy.
You know, you suddenly start doubtingyourself, like, why am I doing this?
I'm a semi intelligent person.
Yeah, those kinds of thingsstay with you, really.
I mean, it gets my heart racing justthinking about it telling you right now.
Well, you're not the only one thatdoesn't like running in the dark.

(35:46):
We've had many other people say that,but you have no choice at Le Mans, right?
It's a 24 hour race.
No, I, I don't mind running inthe dark, but Le Mans lets you
know, you really can't see me.
The lights are good forlike 80 miles an hour.
Let's be honest, especiallyback then, you were out running
the lights by twice the speed.
So, you know, you're justhoping you get something.
So it just lets you know, youreyes have to be as far into that

(36:09):
dark as you can possibly get.
And then forget about raining.
2001, the rain.
Oh my goodness.
I'm glad you brought that up becauseweather conditions are so variable at
Lamar on one side it could be rainingthe other side it could be dry you
know you experience everything there'ssome other tracks that are like that
too Watkins Glen Spa etc where they'reso big they have these microclimates
to what we were talking about beforea lot of people don't like running

(36:31):
in the dark But more so running inthe rain at Lamar is treacherous.
So what is that like?
Oh, it's mad.
It's completely mad.
I mean, you come out onto thestraightaway, even when it's daylight,
it's foggy because of the spray.
Now, if you're running onyour own, it's not too bad.
The rain tires are pretty good.
As long as you don't have standingwater, you know, you just go flat out
and obviously breaking earlier, you lesslateral grip and all the rest of it.

(36:52):
But you run hard in the rain.
It's not a problem per se, but ifsuddenly you're in a pack of cars
and you're the fifth car in line or.
Cars are side by side, you'rerunning in fog, you can't see.
There's a pink tinge of a car's lightin front of you, but that's about it.
You can't see much else.
And in the Corvette, in 2001, I wouldbasically get the car into the left lane,

(37:16):
coming out of Tetra Rouge, and out of theperipheral vision in my eye, I could see
the white line at the side of the road.
Because if I looked ahead, I couldliterally see nothing but fog and mist.
Nothing.
And so all you were looking for is thelight in the mist getting brighter.
And if it is, then you,you start backing it off.
And that was it.
But honestly, you had to keepthe peripheral vision in the side

(37:37):
because I really couldn't see ahead.
You were definitely questioningyour sanity after each stint.
You really, and truly, it was crazy.
It was a crazy race becausemost of it was pouring rain.
And it literally started onthe first lap of the race.
Ron's car was on wets, I was ondries, and I almost completely
crashed the car out on the first lap.
I just got lucky that I clipped anothercar that was basically crashed in

(38:01):
the road, clipped another car becausewhere we were it had suddenly rained,
and literally I was aquaplaning,sliding, and I just teased the car
through a gap, and I just clipped.
The left front wheel.
So the steering was like thatfor the rest of the race.
But luckily that's all that happened.
Luckily.
And we ended up finishing, Ithink, second or something.
It was crazy.
You had an illustrious careerunder the GM flag and running

(38:25):
both Cadillacs and Corvettes.
21 years in GM.
You saw a lot of change from your initialdriving a C4 to the C5, 6s, 7s, and
the birth of the C8, especially withyour ties to the National Corvette.
But I always wondered if you had a hand inthe design of the National Corvette Museum
track itself, because there's certainparts of that that emulate Le Mans.

(38:47):
Does that come from your experience?
No, not at all.
They had several peoplework on that track together.
I was not one of those people, butthey purposely did put in pieces.
Of like the Le Mans chicane, right?
The Le Mans chicane in their turn 1A, 1Bis a replica of the first Le Mans chicane.
You know, it's got a longstraightaway piece as well,
but no, I wasn't part of that.

(39:08):
But I did do some consultingwork there for four years,
which I thoroughly enjoyed.
It was a lot of fun, but that trackis a great track at the museum.
It's a super, super track.
It's fun, really, really fun track.
So if you could go back to Lamont todayand you're still racing, you know, you're
still out there, you're turning laps.
If you could drive any car and turnlaps at Lamont again, what would it be?
I think I'd like to drive the 1998Porsche GT one that my good, good

(39:34):
friend, Alan McNish won the race in.
Cause he said it was justsuch a fun car to drive.
I got to drive the Evo versionof that car in 99 with Alan.
And I also drove in 97 with Alanin the first generation car.
I don't even know what they call it.
I guess it would have been thirdgeneration car of that GT1.
That was such a beautiful car.
I would have loved to have raced that one.
And also I would haveto say the current C8.

(39:57):
I, I've never driven the C8race car and I would love to
have a go in that car as well.
Absolutely.
That would be fun.
Looking at the success of team Corvette,who just now privatized everything, right?
It's no longer officially Jim Prattand Miller took over officially
and kind of the same model thatFerrari and Porsche follow.
What are your thoughts on team Corvette?
You were there at the beginning.

(40:19):
You were there at the end, seeingthe completion of that whole story.
Yeah, I think it's a great move.
I think it's a great move for Prattand Miller to build those cars.
Yeah.
I've heard good things about the new car.
It's certainly under development.
Some of the guys that have beeninvolved in the development, you
know, working hard on that car.
I, in fact, I ran into theguys at Paul Ricard this year.
They were there testing afterwe were done testing there.

(40:40):
They were testing the next day,which was really great to see some
of the engineers and Garcia wasthere as well, which was great.
And also my old friend,Stefan Altelli as well.
He was there, which was crazy.
I think it's the way to go for them.
It means that they can getmore Corvettes out there.
People will have more access to it.
They still have the factoryengineers helping out these teams
to help develop the car further.

(41:01):
So I think it's a super way to gobecause honestly, GM want more people
in these cars, more people racing thesecars, just like they did with the C5s.
A lot of the cars ended upoverseas, C6s and also the
C7s they passed these cars on.
I think it's great because I had ameeting where I work for Motortrend
sometimes on and off over the yearsand I'm still with them if you like.

(41:22):
I was there a couple of years agowhen they introduced the new Cayman
with the GT3 engine and I wassitting next to Andres Pruninga.
It was funny because we were at dinner.
Andy, he said, how's the,how's the C8 coming along?
And I said, no, I said, it's great.
I said, it's, it's, it's a good car.
I said, it's a really nice car.
He said, yes, we were very,very happy to see the C8.

(41:43):
I said, really?
He said, Andy, there's notmany of those cars left.
He said, if Corvette doesn't make aC8 or a C9 or something like that,
it's hard for other companies tomake a case for their sports cars.
Sports cars are becoming rarer and rarer.
And I was just thinking,you asked me that.
It's nice to see that because itmeans that race car versions of
this thing are going to keep going.

(42:04):
And Porsche can keep going and Toyotacan keep going with a Supra, the BRZ and
the, and the, uh, 86 and the Nissan 400Z.
I love to see sports carsout there because it's a big
thing to get in a sports car.
I don't care.
You know, I love low power carsas much as high power cars.
Obviously there'll be the really highend cars, but more accessible ones
is great because there's nothing likedoing a track day, go to an autocross.

(42:28):
Enjoy your cars and they'rejust so much fun to drive.
This past year, the 2024, thehundred and first lama, we really
saw the bridge beginning to getcloser between WEC and imsa.
We saw Toyota there with the Lexus.
We saw BMW In the GT classes,there were a lot more cars.
It looked more like anIMSA race in some respects.

(42:50):
Mm-Hmm.
. And like you, I get excited about thatbecause I do want to see more sports cars.
Exactly.
At Lama.
And it was so cool for Porsche guys totell me, Hey, cause he knew, you know,
it was related, if you like to call that.
And it was a wonderfulconversation with him.
He was so enthusiastic about the C8and he said, yes, yes, this is good.
This is good for all of us, all of us.
He said, so, you know, and he meant it.

(43:10):
Well, we have reached that point whereI would like to turn the microphone
over to the ACO USA president,David Lowe, for a couple of words.
Andy, it's been an honor and aprivilege to have you on tonight.
I personally enjoyed it.
Particularly this lastpart about sports cars.
I've been really pushing my wife.
I've told her, you know, I'm gettingto that age that I'm probably capable

(43:30):
of driving a sports car more regularly.
Yes.
So I'll just tell her thatAndy really suggests that I
go to look at one seriously.
Now, especially a Corvette.
Highly recommended.
Ben Keating has been a personal friend.
He's also one of our legends.
Just a wonderful guy.
Super, super nice guy.
I don't know him well,but he's such a nice guy.

(43:51):
Absolutely.
Andy Pilgrim, racer,educator, and journalist.
He continues his work in traffic safety.
He's a professional racing driverin series like SRO World Challenge.
He also writes vehicle testarticles and creates video content.
If you want to catch up withAndy, be sure to check out www.
AndyPilgrim.
com for all the details or follow himon social media at Andy Pilgrim on

(44:14):
Facebook and YouTube, or at Andy Pilgrimnumber eight on Instagram and Twitter.
And on behalf of everyone here andthose listening at home, thank you
for sharing your story with us.
We hope you enjoyed this presentationand look forward to more evenings
with the legend throughout the season.
And Andy, I can't thank you enoughfor coming on evening with a legend.

(44:35):
It's been an honor to call youa friend for over 10 years now.
I'll never forget the firsttime I got in the car with you.
And it's always great to gettogether and share stories.
Eric, thank you so much, mate.
Thanks a lot.
It's really been fun forme to go through this.
It's been a long time since I'vehad so much discussion about Lamar.
It's just been great.
Just churning things outof the back of my head.
It's awesome.
Cheers, mate.

(45:06):
This episode has been broughtto you by the Automobile Club
of the West and the ACO USA.
From the awe inspiring speed demons thathave graced the track to the courageous
drivers who have pushed the limits ofendurance, the 24 Hours of Le Mans is
an automotive spectacle like no other.
For over a century, the 24 Hours LeMans has urged manufacturers to innovate
for the benefit of future motorists.

(45:26):
And it's a celebration of therelentless pursuit of speed and
excellence in the world of motorsports.
To learn more about, or to become a memberof the ACO USA, look no further than www.
lemans.
org, click on English in the upperright corner, and then click on the
ACO members tab for club offers.
Once you've become a member, you canfollow all the action on the Facebook

(45:48):
group, ACO USA members club, andbecome part of the legend with future
evening with the legend meetups.
This episode has been brought to youby Grand Touring Motorsports as part
of our Motoring Podcast Network.

(46:10):
For more episodes like this, tune in eachweek for more exciting and educational
content from organizations like TheExotic Car Marketplace, The Motoring
Historian, Brake Fix, and many others.
If you'd like to support GrandTouring Motorsports and the Motoring
Podcast Network, sign up for one ofour many sponsorship tiers at www.
patreon.
com forward slash GT Motorsports.

(46:31):
Please note that the content,opinions, and materials presented and
expressed in this episode are thoseof its creator, and this episode has
been published with their consent.
If you have any inquiries about thisprogram, please contact the creators
of this episode via email or socialmedia as mentioned in the episode.
Advertise With Us

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know
My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark

My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark

My Favorite Murder is a true crime comedy podcast hosted by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. Each week, Karen and Georgia share compelling true crimes and hometown stories from friends and listeners. Since MFM launched in January of 2016, Karen and Georgia have shared their lifelong interest in true crime and have covered stories of infamous serial killers like the Night Stalker, mysterious cold cases, captivating cults, incredible survivor stories and important events from history like the Tulsa race massacre of 1921. My Favorite Murder is part of the Exactly Right podcast network that provides a platform for bold, creative voices to bring to life provocative, entertaining and relatable stories for audiences everywhere. The Exactly Right roster of podcasts covers a variety of topics including historic true crime, comedic interviews and news, science, pop culture and more. Podcasts on the network include Buried Bones with Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes, That's Messed Up: An SVU Podcast, This Podcast Will Kill You, Bananas and more.

The Joe Rogan Experience

The Joe Rogan Experience

The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.

Music, radio and podcasts, all free. Listen online or download the iHeart App.

Connect

© 2025 iHeartMedia, Inc.