November 14, 2024 • 24 mins
Today we have racings greatest tragedy, the legendary 1955 Le Mans wreck. Join us as I describe the grisly nature of this accident as Nathan practically has a joygasm over the carnage.
What kind of monster is Nate? Well you best tune in to find out!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Shaun (00:00):
The 1955 Le Mans race disaster Nate.
Do you know anything about thisevent or Le Mans racing in
general?
Nate (00:07):
I'm trying to think Le Mans race is that when they're
driving through the city, likeon Iron man 2?
No, that is F1.
Okay, no, I don't.
I mean I know I've heard thewords before.
It's not like, oh, I've neverheard that those words put
together doing something.
It's not.
It's not that.
I just don't know, almost Iknow, nixon, nothing about it,
(00:29):
gotcha.
Shaun (00:29):
That's kind of what I figured.
Well, the Le Mans race is a24-hour race that's held near
the town of Le Mans, france, andthe winner of this isn't who
comes in first, second or third,but it's the car that travels
the furthest number of miles.
After 24 hours of racing, theydo swap out drivers two drivers
per car.
So you know, at whateverintervals they decide they'll be
like, pull over to the pit, newdriver gets in and continues
(00:51):
driving and it is, yeah, 24hours of continuous racing.
It actually does go through alittle bit of towns and stuff.
It kind of does in a way, Iguess.
I mean, it doesn't feel likesomething you'd want to be there
standing in the crowd, waiting,standing around 24 hours for
but.
Nate (01:06):
I mean.
I mean well, oh, for meracing's kind of boring anyway.
Shaun (01:09):
I mean, NASCAR is whatever but NASCAR is probably
the boringest of all the races.
Well, I mean, they're justgoing around in a big oval.
Very true, le Mans and F1s.
You got like little hairpinturns, you got corners, you got
sneaky little straightaways, andevery course is a little bit
different.
I don't know, nascar is justturn left and if you don't turn
left fast enough you wind uplike Dale Earnhardt.
(01:31):
Yeah, probably anger somepeople with that one, but
anyways, I don't care.
Le Mans 24 hours race Basicallyall the big car companies like
Jaguar, mercedes, bmw.
They'll enter their like carsand it's like hey, here's the
fastest car that we have thatour engineers could design.
Now we're going to race it andit's considered one of the three
big daddies of racing.
It's the 24 Hours of Le Mans,the Indianapolis 500, and the
(01:54):
Monaco Grand Prix.
Those are considered the threebig races that people want to
compete in.
I've definitely heard of themiddle one, the Indianapolis 500
, yep.
Nate (02:02):
Yeah, the last one.
I think I see it referenced onvideo games.
Shaun (02:05):
Actually I was just about to say as a side note.
Super Monaco on the SegaGenesis was a really fun racing
game.
I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Nate (02:12):
Now I know that track, throw me out there and I'll win,
yeah exactly so this race.
Shaun (02:18):
It started in 1923.
It is the oldest activeendurance racing event in the
world.
However, this year we'll befocusing on is 1955, a date that
will live in infamy.
This is one of the mostanticipated racing years yet for
the Le Mans.
Three of the winningest teamsever Jaguar, ferrari and
Mercedes were all debuting theirnew state-of-the-art racing
cars for the world to see.
(02:39):
They're like, hey, these aregoing to just be mind-blowingly
fast and they were going to beby far the fastest cars on the
track so far.
By the way, track 8.38 milesand it kind of goes through like
woods, little corners, it goesthrough little chunks of the
town and stuff, so it's like avariety of areas you got to race
through.
Nate (02:56):
I have a question though.
Yes, so this race is about howthe miles travel, not to tell
you the fastest correct, correctis about how the miles travel,
not to sell you the fastestcorrect, correct.
So are they saying that theircars can go that fast, like for
a long, long time?
Shaun (03:11):
or basically it's kind of a combination of things.
That is impressive with thesecars, it's not only how fast
they can go, but the fact theyhave to be built reliable enough
to basically be running at fullthrottle 24 hours straight.
Okay, I got you?
Nate (03:22):
yep, because I went straight to like marathon
running, where it's like youdon't you're, but then again
it's like right after.
I thought that, which is why Iraised my objection, but before
I actually got it out there inmy head, it's like they're
machines.
Shaun (03:37):
They never get tired.
Nate (03:38):
Yeah, it's like they're not dealing with like the human
body is a little more complex.
Shaun (03:42):
They're not dealing with like the human body is a little
more complex than a bike, Yep,but also you got to deal with
the drivers of the human thatare in there.
Eventually, you know, if you'reracing off and on for 24 hours,
you're going to get a littlebit tired, I would imagine.
Oh, dude, yeah.
And also, you know, not only alot of these cars also didn't
finish because they would justbreak down halfway through the
race.
Because you know, I wouldabsolutely expect.
Yep, that's probably why Fordnever did good in the race.
(04:04):
Ba-da-ba-ba-da-ba, anyways.
So, like I was saying, theseare going to be by far the
fastest cars on that track.
So far, they were clocked atbeing able to do 170 miles per
hour in the trials on this race.
For comparison, the max speedfor these cars when the track
(04:24):
was built in 1923 was 60 milesper hour and, uh, even though
they widened out the course alittle bit in spots, this was
pretty much the exact samecourse that was built, uh, back
in 1923.
So basically, we got cars thatwere are doing 170 miles an hour
on a track that was designedfor 60 miles an hour.
In fact, the uh, amazing, yeah,right, in fact uh, mercedes
driver go wrong?
exactly, uh, right, in fact.
(04:47):
Uh, mercedes driver, what couldgo wrong?
Exactly, uh, in fact, evenMercedes driver Pierre Levee
complained we need a signalsystem between drivers.
Our cars are going way too fastfor this course.
Something bad is going tohappen.
A little bit of foreshadowingthere.
Three hours into the 24 hourrace and records are being
broken left and right as thefastest cars on the planet
battle for supremacy and aswe're getting towards the pit
area.
So you know, it's basicallythis long eight-mile race thing
(05:08):
of it.
And then there's a little areawhere it kind of like there's
this pit area where everybodycan like pull in and you know,
swap drivers get their carslooked at and such and such.
So as we're getting into thisarea, the Jaguar driver.
He gets a signal from his pitcrew to pull down into the pit
area.
Into the pit area, he hits thebrakes and he goes to slow down
to the pit area on theright-hand side of the track.
Now, this Jaguar was equippedwith some of the best brakes in
the automotive industry andpeople had not seen a car break
(05:31):
this fast in pretty much ever.
So when the Jaguar decided heneeded to brake in a hurry and
slow way down in a hurry to getinto the pits.
The Austin Healey car behindhim was not ready for how quick
that dude started to stop.
So, yeah, so the Austin Healyso picture this the Jaguar is
like immediately hits his brakesand almost comes to a dead stop
.
He's going to the pits.
There's an Austin Healy carthat's right behind him and he's
(05:54):
like oh no, I'm about to rearin this Jaguar.
So he takes a hard left andtries to scoot around the Jaguar
and try to, you know, safely,avoid him.
And tried to, you know, safelyavoid him.
But because this Austin Healyis also doing 150 miles an hour
at this time, he starts to losecontrol and instead of
gracefully passing around theside of the Jaguar, he starts
fishtailing Gracefully.
Yeah, he winds up fishtailingout into the middle of the track
(06:17):
and, as all this happens, thefastest car on the track that
everybody expected to win comesroaring into play the Mercedes
300 SLR Beautiful car, by theway.
He comes roaring into thepicture doing 150 miles an hour.
Nate (06:30):
He had an atomic engine.
That was the secret.
Unfortunately, no one lived.
Shaun (06:39):
The nuclear blast wiped out everybody in a 10-mile
radius, as the Mercedes all said.
He's cruising along in 150.
And Austin Healy shoots rightin front of him and he has
literally no time to react.
Things are just going downhill.
He has one chance to do onething and all he does is he
shoots up his hand to signal thedriver behind him that it's
(06:59):
about to go down and you need toget out of the way in a hurry.
The driver behind him that gotsignaled was actually the other
Mercedes driver.
Go down and you need to get outof the way in a hurry.
The driver behind him that gotsignaled was actually the other
Mercedes driver.
So nice little bit of teamworkthere, I guess.
However, this move would infact save the life of the driver
behind him, but the actualdriver of the Mercedes the one
who threw up his hand and wasabout to go into a wreck well,
he didn't do so well.
I should point out too, ifyou're thinking about the cars
(07:21):
that they have in this race outto, if you're thinking about the
cars that they have in thisrace, think speed racer so
basically like open top cars,you know, all swoopy, kind of
looks like a bar of soap.
Nate (07:29):
Yes, yes, no safety features.
That for correct the image,because I was thinking of like
more of a.
There's a little box, not boxcars, but those cars they race
off road and stuff gotcha.
Shaun (07:40):
Yep, nope, these are like speed racer style cars, like
completely open top, tiny littlelike six inch windshield, no
seat belts, no safety things.
Real man racing.
Nate (07:49):
Should I assume the fate of the dude from RoboCop is very
similar to the fate of this guy?
Wait, which guy from RoboCop?
The one?
You got hit by a car.
You got splattered and turnedinto like mush.
Shaun (08:01):
Oh, this guy.
No, this guy didn't actuallylike get swamped in a
radioactive fluid and mutate.
I assume you're talking aboutthat guy yes, that guy.
Nate (08:10):
Well, I'm not talking about the mutate, but I am
talking about the hit by car andturned into goo Gotcha.
Shaun (08:15):
Nope, nope.
What happens is actually farmore horrifying.
So we got the Mercedes and he'sabout to rear-end this
Austin-Healey and, because ofthe aerodynamic shape of these
cars, the Austin-Healey actuallyacted as a ramp for the
Mercedes.
So instead of like a rear-endbonk, think of more like a
rear-end and I'm going to justshoot off of him.
Like you know, almost like aDukes of Hazzard sort of thing,
(08:38):
that's amazing.
And I should also let you knowthis Horrible yes.
Nate (08:44):
It's horrific.
Off Top Topic does acknowledgethe tragedy.
However, it was also amazing.
Shaun (08:49):
I should also let you know that this is one of the
most popular live events in theworld at the time, and there are
massive crowds the entirelength of the course, especially
around this pit area that we'retalking about.
I mean, you can see a pictureof it there just a wall of
people as far as the eye can see, just like crowded up to the
track as close as they can,because, again, there's like no
safety regulations back then.
(09:10):
They're just like you want tosee the race.
Get as close as you can, touchthe cars as they drive by, if
you dare, we don't care.
Touch the car, graze your handyeah, I'm assuming, literally
there's like pictures of peoplelike leaning over the track,
like reaching out and being likehey, driver.
Nate (09:23):
Dude, there's not a world that they did not do that often.
Shaun (09:27):
Yeah, yeah.
So, anywho, the Mercedeslaunches through the air off the
back of that Austin Healey andhe flies through the air, starts
coming down and perfectly timesit.
So he hits the barricade on theside of the racetrack and his
car probably begins tosomersault end over end through
that packed crowd of people at120 miles an hour.
(09:49):
The car almost immediatelybursts into flames and starts
shooting flaming car partseverywhere, including the engine
, comes dismantled and rollslike a bowling ball through the
crowd, cutting people in half,smashing them, spraying, you
know burning oil and burning gaseverywhere.
The car itself, you know,flipping end over end, slamming
into people, crushing them,flattening them out.
Axle comes loose and spinsaround, killing people left and
(10:12):
right.
Best part, the hood comes loose,nate.
The hood comes loose and goesflying through the air like a
discus at 150 miles an hour,chopping off people's heads,
literally.
People got decapitated by aflying hood through the crowd.
So not only that the flyinghood going through the crowd is
(10:33):
bad enough, but one thing thathappened with this car is to
make it the lightest carpossible.
They had a magnesium alloyframe because it is nice, light,
strong.
But also one problem is itmelts very easily and tends to
catch on fire.
So now, all of a sudden, wehave uh molten balls of
magnesium frame flying throughthe air, hitting people, melting
(10:54):
them uh yeah, I like shaking myhead yeah, the axle popped off,
uh, crushing a bunch of people.
Uh, the drive.
Well, actually I'll go to thenext part.
Nate (11:05):
So I was picturing the end of that.
The driver gets out.
He's like kind of waves hishands like I'm okay.
Shaun (11:12):
Well, actually I can go into that right now.
The driver well, he wasbasically thrown from the car
because, you know, no seatbeltsor anything and when this thing
goes end over end, it justbasically yeeted him right out
the top of it, him right out thetop of it, and he hit the
ground.
And you know, when you hit theground at 150, you're basically
dead instantly.
So they say, even with thehelmet on.
His skull was crushed as soonas he hit that pavement With the
helmet on.
Nate (11:32):
His head was fine, his body was not.
Shaun (11:36):
The best part was, though , his body went flying the
opposite direction of the car,shooting across the track and
landed in front of the pit crewthat was about to work on him,
including the replacement driverwatching this all and his wife,
who was waiting in the pit crewto say hi to him and, you know,
wish him well on the race.
Nate (11:50):
That is amazing.
Shaun (11:51):
I mean, it's terrible, that's awful.
Nate (11:54):
Oh my God, I just that is.
Shaun (11:58):
I know it's like somebody just wrote this I don't know,
but oh my God but, oh my god,that is I.
Just here we are laughing at awoman who probably had to go
through more therapy thananybody in the history.
Nate (12:08):
There they're waiting to go, and also this buys us flop
and his wife's like yep that wasmy exact thought too.
Shaun (12:13):
She's like standing with flowers back.
Oh my, I'll be here soon.
Nate (12:16):
I love him so, oh god it was like the camera pans in her
face, just look like okay, evenbetter.
Shaun (12:22):
I like to think of.
The fact is like thereplacement driver had been like
eyeing that, hit the otherdriver's wife for a long time
and this is like his time tomake his move.
Be like so widowed now.
Huh like immediately.
Yeah, he's just like she's likecrying over the corpse.
He's like taps around the show.
Be like we should go out todinner later and talk about this
.
I don't think that's actuallywhat happened, but that would be
yeah, kind of yeah, of course.
(12:42):
Yeah, I'm guessing they're bothpretty traumatized.
Nate (12:45):
Yeah, this is off.
Yes, I acknowledge this isterrible.
This actually happened.
It's awful, but still I'm sorry.
Shaun (12:51):
In the meantime Will.
This body is like laying thereand people are being traumatized
.
To add to some fun of it.
So we got the flaming carwreckage like in the middle of
this crowd and people are justlike running around dying and on
fire and stuff.
Our department shows up andthey decide to put out the fire
with water.
But what they didn't knowapparently, was either they
didn't know this happened orthey didn't know that it was a
(13:12):
magnesium frame on the car.
But apparently when you hitmagnesium of magnesium fire with
water, it explodes.
So they show up to put out thewater or put out the fire.
Water hits that frame and theframe explodes a second time.
Show water or put out the fire,water hits that frame and the
frame explodes a second time.
Showering people with moltenmagnesium Basically a giant
fireball happened a second timeIn a matter of seconds.
82 people were killed and asmany as 178 were maimed, though
(13:34):
some say the number is muchhigher and also they say it
wasn't injured.
Maimed was the term they usedand that sounds much worse than
injured.
Yeah yeah, injured's like oh hehas some burns, mame's like yeah
, mame's like my arm's gone.
Nate (13:47):
Yeah, like this is some serious.
Shaun (13:50):
So it was also so bad.
Basically, they had priestsgoing around giving last rites
at people because there were somany people like laying there
dying and bleeding out.
Now, nate, if you would likesome pictures of it, if you go
into our little chat thing thatwe have, there should be like a
little text channel calledlamans and you can see some of
the races, including like apicture of recreating how the
car hit the barricade, went,flying over it and flipping down
(14:10):
it.
Giant piles of fire everywhere.
Someone made a cartoon yeah,yeah, you can actually see, uh,
footage of this happening too,and I can't tell if it's actual
like footage or if it's like.
You know, when they takepictures and they can recreate a
video out of that.
Back in the day it might havebeen one of those kind of things
, but yeah, you can see itflying through the crowd.
Not good times, not good timesat all.
(14:31):
But if there is one thing aboutthis whole incident that true,
that shows us that god trulydoes smile on us in our darkest
times, nate's like the car wreck.
It happened off of one side ofthe track.
The dead body shot off theother side of the track.
So that means the track isclear, the race can keep going.
Nate, yep.
The higher-ups said nope, trackis clear, we're going to keep
on racing.
Everybody keep going, wow, soyep.
(14:53):
And also too this is one thingthat's easy to forget this track
is eight miles, so this wreckonly happened in one tiny spot.
Lot of drivers who don't evenknow this is going on.
There's people on the otherside of the track watching who
have no idea this is going on.
So, yeah, just picture you're aracing car driver puttering
around, everything's goingnormally, and you come around a
corner and there's just fireeverywhere and dead bodies.
It's like you're like what do Ido about this?
(15:13):
Oh, you keep racing, son,track's clear, you keep doing it
, go, go, go.
Yeah, exactly, technically, theguy who won the race was a
Mercedes driver that didn't diein the wreck and they got
signaled and actually made itout alive.
However, at the last minute ofthe race, mercedes decided it's
probably going to be bad opticsif we win this after everybody
died.
So they bowed out of the raceat the last moment and Jaguar
(15:38):
kind of the car that started thewhole wreck.
They basically gave themoptions, like you know, kind of
bad optics on this.
You can bow out if you want to,and they're like nope, we're
here to win.
And they finished the race.
They technically won, which, um,you know, some people took that
the wrong way and were prettymad at jaguar.
I don't think jaguar reallycared, because they're jaguar.
Uh, the race director wouldquestion about it.
He came up with a series ofstatements to justify the
(16:00):
reasons to keep the race going.
Um, some of them were, some ofthem were actually pretty like
reasonable.
Like if they called off therace right then there everybody
would have left at once, streetswould have been jammed,
emergency vehicles would havebeen stuck, they couldn't do
what.
Uh, nobody would have been ableto get there, and you know that
kind of makes sense yeah, lookat that, that lens.
Nate (16:19):
You know you kind of understand the.
The question is were theythinking that, yeah, was that a
happy happenstance?
Shaun (16:28):
or yeah, he should have probably stopped talking there,
because he kind of went on to dosay other stuff, like quoting
the line the show must go on andsaid that other races had had
wrecks and kept going.
And there it is, yep.
And then he also pointed outthat if the race didn't finish,
the sponsors and other companiesmight sue for a breach of
contract and that'd be a moneyloss for Le Mans.
And finally, the last reasonyou throw is the old and anyway,
(16:49):
I didn't even have theauthority to cancel a race.
The other dude had theauthority and he was on vacation
.
It wasn't even my job to makethis call.
So, yeah, honestly, the dudeshould have shut up right after
the.
You know everybody would havejammed.
Nate (17:01):
It would have been fine, yep with, just had we caught,
had we canceled.
It would actually cause moreproblems.
We kept it going, so peoplestayed in like that's all, and
then you move on.
But no people front back then,didn't?
Shaun (17:16):
there's like no, oh, it wasn't my fault yeah, picture,
like some, you know, dude off tothe side during that speech,
like give him like the knock itoff sign, like no, no, no, cut
it out, stop talking.
Frantically waving, you'remaking this worse.
So yeah, in the end 80 to 84people were dead Spectators,
(17:37):
including the race driver Eitherby flying debris or from the
fire or the explosion the firedepartment did, or so on and so
forth.
A further 120 to 178 wereinjured, although some people
say the number is probably a lothigher and they kind of like
tried to tone it down a littlebit.
You know Again, sponsors andstuff it remains the most
catastrophic crash inmotorsports history.
(17:57):
A special mass was held in themorning at Le Mans Cathedral for
the first funerals of thevictims.
Basically, they fall out fromthis there's a temporary ban on
motorsports in the countries ofFrance, spain, switzerland and
West Germany and a few othernations until they say
racetracks could be brought to ahigher safety standard.
I think most of them were backinto racing in less than a year,
(18:18):
so they probably didn't carethat much.
Nate (18:20):
Again, it was also fucking 1955.
You know, in 1955, you can getaway with you know, just it was
a different time.
Shaun (18:30):
Yeah, they didn't want to be blown up in a race.
They shouldn't have gone to therace.
That's their fault.
Yeah, it's kind of like if youdidn't want to get molested, you
shouldn't have gone over toUncle Slippy Fist's house.
It's always the victim to beblamed back then.
I'm not wrong.
No, you weren't.
As far as the blame, well, theyrapidly tried to put the blame
on anybody and everybody theycould.
(18:50):
At first they tried to blamethe Jaguar driver for slowing
down too fast, but that neverreally stuck because I mean, how
can you really fault somebodyfor slowing down too fast?
The racing body also tried toclaim that magnesium frame
explosion from the firedepartment tried to put out.
Also tried to claim thatmagnesium frame explosion from
the fire department tried to putit out.
They initially tried to claimthe fact that Mercedes had added
explosive chemicals to theirfuel to make the car go faster.
(19:13):
So they're basically like nope,nope, that whole magnesium
frame explosion that had nothingto do with us.
But eventually, after a year ofinvestigation, the fault was
determined to be drumroll,please, the fault of no one,
just an accident no one couldhave seen coming.
Nope, not one person could haveseen this comingroll, please.
The fault of no one, just anaccident.
No one could have seen coming.
Nope, not one person could haveseen this coming.
You know the track that had 150mile an hour cars on it.
(19:34):
There's design for 60 mile anhours.
One thing that came outside ofthis so the guy who's waiting in
the pits to replace the onedriver who watched his buddy
like turn as a flaming ball offlesh in front of him, yeah, he
went on to invent, uh, what'sknown as the uh fitch barrels, I
believe is what they're called,and those are the safety
barrels you see, on the side ofhighways that are full of sand,
so if somebody goes out ofcontrol and slams into them,
(19:54):
it's just like a sand barricadethat slows them down.
He invented those.
He became a champion for racingsafety.
After this whole thing, it's I.
I could see how that'd be youruh takeaway from seeing that
kind of wreck yeah, I just.
Nate (20:06):
But the one thing I popped my head is like so you know
what happened was he wasstanding there watching the
tragedy in front of him and hegoes those people like those
cars are sorry, those cars areplowed with those people like
they're bags of sand.
Shaun (20:21):
Yeah, bags of sand that's probably exactly what it was.
He watched it.
The car like slow down afterhit one really fat dude.
He's like that, man's like abag of sand.
Nate (20:32):
He's like people are like, oh wow, this is really helping
people around.
I was like, yeah, just imaginea bunch of people standing side
by side.
Shaun (20:38):
We tried to do that with orphaned children at first, but
it turns out the orphanageswouldn't let us just take as
many kids as we wanted.
Nate (20:44):
Here children stand here and be a barrier.
The way they compensated forthat was the bags of sand weigh
as much as a child he's likethese are for children.
Shaun (20:54):
I like that.
So the Austin Healey the carthat was the impromptu ramp
afterwards in 1969, it wasactually bought at an auction
for 155 pounds, or theequivalent of $3,000 in 2023
money that seems kind of likenot much money for a piece of
history, to be honest.
Nate (21:10):
In December 2011, yeah, you could say, oh, it's bad,
blah, blah, blah, but I meanit's still history.
Shaun (21:17):
Yeah, I mean somewhere.
I'm sure somebody has like.
Nate (21:22):
Hitler's mustache saved in a jar somewhere.
Shaun (21:25):
There's yeah, 100%, Someone out there has, yeah,
somewhere there's just an upperlip with a mustache on it
floating in a pickle jar.
They never know what happenedto his body.
Yeah, so in December 2011, thatcar was auctioned again and was
sold for 843,000 pounds, orclose to a million bucks
nowadays.
Because of this, mercedesdecided to bow out of Le Mans
racing for 30 years, notreturning until 1985.
(21:49):
And then they raced again foranother 14 years until they had
a second spectacular wreck thatkilled a bunch of people and, oh
no, sorry, it was a non-fatalcrash in 1999.
Nate (21:57):
Oh boo, I was like yeah, whatever you do, don't Jaguar in
your race, yeah.
Shaun (22:04):
There's ever a Mercedes car in a race.
You need to be very careful ofthat because they might kill you
.
So there you go, nate.
That's pretty much the long andthe short of that race.
Kind of a shorter episode, butyeah, I dig it.
Yeah, we got to the point.
A lot of people died.
Not good times Don't crowd nextto a racetrack, apparently.
But yeah, man, especially man,especially with like that hood,
(22:25):
flying off and decapitatingpeople, could you imagine just
standing there watching thathappen?
Nate (22:28):
it's like minding your own business.
Shaun (22:30):
The car goes vaulting next to you and dude next to his
head just flies off from a hood.
Nate (22:34):
It reminded me of what was that?
What movie was that?
It was a like a boat movie.
You remember that b2 ghost shipand I never.
By the way, I've never seen themovie, but I've seen the.
And part of the trailer wasthis wire goes and like snaps,
it goes through a bunch ofpeople.
That's reminding me of this,just those tethering wires yeah,
apparently those literally willgo through somebody.
(22:55):
Yeah, it's like I justmentioned this thing just flying
through the air.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's prettymuch it.
Shaun (23:08):
That's what I mean.
It wouldn't have happened to me, because I don't like races
Sucks to be them but that's whatthey get for being a race fan,
right.
Nate (23:11):
Well, I guess it's the unwritten thing.
Like you're going to a place,because even now in NASCAR there
is not a 0% chance whetherNASCAR cars can like get a
massive wreck thrown in the airand just you'll land on somebody
.
Shaun (23:27):
A lot of people in those crowds are actively hoping that
happens and they get a seat.
I mean they don't want the carto land on them, but I mean if
it killed somebody else they'dbe absolutely fine with that.
Nate (23:34):
Be like I gotta see it I mean, I think there are, even as
I have to appear from, you canprobably look it up, I'm not
gonna.
Um, hasn't there been timeswhere like wheels have come up,
cars and like hit people in thestands?
Yep, that has happened.
Yeah, it's like I could haveswore.
I've seen like images of that.
Shaun (23:51):
There's also a Simpson scene you might be thinking of
two or somebody got crushed by atire.
That same way.
Well, yeah, but that was alsobased off of a real sit.
Yeah, yeah.
Nate (23:59):
Simpsons did it.
The 1955 Le Mans race disaster Nate.
Do you know anything about thisevent or Le Mans racing in
general?
Nate (00:07):
I'm trying to think Le Mans race is that when they're
driving through the city, likeon Iron man 2?
No, that is F1.
Okay, no, I don't.
I mean I know I've heard thewords before.
It's not like, oh, I've neverheard that those words put
together doing something.
It's not.
It's not that.
I just don't know, almost Iknow, nixon, nothing about it,
(00:29):
gotcha.
Shaun (00:29):
That's kind of what I figured.
Well, the Le Mans race is a24-hour race that's held near
the town of Le Mans, france, andthe winner of this isn't who
comes in first, second or third,but it's the car that travels
the furthest number of miles.
After 24 hours of racing, theydo swap out drivers two drivers
per car.
So you know, at whateverintervals they decide they'll be
like, pull over to the pit, newdriver gets in and continues
(00:51):
driving and it is, yeah, 24hours of continuous racing.
It actually does go through alittle bit of towns and stuff.
It kind of does in a way, Iguess.
I mean, it doesn't feel likesomething you'd want to be there
standing in the crowd, waiting,standing around 24 hours for
but.
Nate (01:06):
I mean.
I mean well, oh, for meracing's kind of boring anyway.
Shaun (01:09):
I mean, NASCAR is whatever but NASCAR is probably
the boringest of all the races.
Well, I mean, they're justgoing around in a big oval.
Very true, le Mans and F1s.
You got like little hairpinturns, you got corners, you got
sneaky little straightaways, andevery course is a little bit
different.
I don't know, nascar is justturn left and if you don't turn
left fast enough you wind uplike Dale Earnhardt.
(01:31):
Yeah, probably anger somepeople with that one, but
anyways, I don't care.
Le Mans 24 hours race Basicallyall the big car companies like
Jaguar, mercedes, bmw.
They'll enter their like carsand it's like hey, here's the
fastest car that we have thatour engineers could design.
Now we're going to race it andit's considered one of the three
big daddies of racing.
It's the 24 Hours of Le Mans,the Indianapolis 500, and the
(01:54):
Monaco Grand Prix.
Those are considered the threebig races that people want to
compete in.
I've definitely heard of themiddle one, the Indianapolis 500
, yep.
Nate (02:02):
Yeah, the last one.
I think I see it referenced onvideo games.
Shaun (02:05):
Actually I was just about to say as a side note.
Super Monaco on the SegaGenesis was a really fun racing
game.
I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Nate (02:12):
Now I know that track, throw me out there and I'll win,
yeah exactly so this race.
Shaun (02:18):
It started in 1923.
It is the oldest activeendurance racing event in the
world.
However, this year we'll befocusing on is 1955, a date that
will live in infamy.
This is one of the mostanticipated racing years yet for
the Le Mans.
Three of the winningest teamsever Jaguar, ferrari and
Mercedes were all debuting theirnew state-of-the-art racing
cars for the world to see.
(02:39):
They're like, hey, these aregoing to just be mind-blowingly
fast and they were going to beby far the fastest cars on the
track so far.
By the way, track 8.38 milesand it kind of goes through like
woods, little corners, it goesthrough little chunks of the
town and stuff, so it's like avariety of areas you got to race
through.
Nate (02:56):
I have a question though.
Yes, so this race is about howthe miles travel, not to tell
you the fastest correct, correctis about how the miles travel,
not to sell you the fastestcorrect, correct.
So are they saying that theircars can go that fast, like for
a long, long time?
Shaun (03:11):
or basically it's kind of a combination of things.
That is impressive with thesecars, it's not only how fast
they can go, but the fact theyhave to be built reliable enough
to basically be running at fullthrottle 24 hours straight.
Okay, I got you?
Nate (03:22):
yep, because I went straight to like marathon
running, where it's like youdon't you're, but then again
it's like right after.
I thought that, which is why Iraised my objection, but before
I actually got it out there inmy head, it's like they're
machines.
Shaun (03:37):
They never get tired.
Nate (03:38):
Yeah, it's like they're not dealing with like the human
body is a little more complex.
Shaun (03:42):
They're not dealing with like the human body is a little
more complex than a bike, Yep,but also you got to deal with
the drivers of the human thatare in there.
Eventually, you know, if you'reracing off and on for 24 hours,
you're going to get a littlebit tired, I would imagine.
Oh, dude, yeah.
And also, you know, not only alot of these cars also didn't
finish because they would justbreak down halfway through the
race.
Because you know, I wouldabsolutely expect.
Yep, that's probably why Fordnever did good in the race.
(04:04):
Ba-da-ba-ba-da-ba, anyways.
So, like I was saying, theseare going to be by far the
fastest cars on that track.
So far, they were clocked atbeing able to do 170 miles per
hour in the trials on this race.
For comparison, the max speedfor these cars when the track
(04:24):
was built in 1923 was 60 milesper hour and, uh, even though
they widened out the course alittle bit in spots, this was
pretty much the exact samecourse that was built, uh, back
in 1923.
So basically, we got cars thatwere are doing 170 miles an hour
on a track that was designedfor 60 miles an hour.
In fact, the uh, amazing, yeah,right, in fact uh, mercedes
driver go wrong?
exactly, uh, right, in fact.
(04:47):
Uh, mercedes driver, what couldgo wrong?
Exactly, uh, in fact, evenMercedes driver Pierre Levee
complained we need a signalsystem between drivers.
Our cars are going way too fastfor this course.
Something bad is going tohappen.
A little bit of foreshadowingthere.
Three hours into the 24 hourrace and records are being
broken left and right as thefastest cars on the planet
battle for supremacy and aswe're getting towards the pit
area.
So you know, it's basicallythis long eight-mile race thing
(05:08):
of it.
And then there's a little areawhere it kind of like there's
this pit area where everybodycan like pull in and you know,
swap drivers get their carslooked at and such and such.
So as we're getting into thisarea, the Jaguar driver.
He gets a signal from his pitcrew to pull down into the pit
area.
Into the pit area, he hits thebrakes and he goes to slow down
to the pit area on theright-hand side of the track.
Now, this Jaguar was equippedwith some of the best brakes in
the automotive industry andpeople had not seen a car break
(05:31):
this fast in pretty much ever.
So when the Jaguar decided heneeded to brake in a hurry and
slow way down in a hurry to getinto the pits.
The Austin Healey car behindhim was not ready for how quick
that dude started to stop.
So, yeah, so the Austin Healyso picture this the Jaguar is
like immediately hits his brakesand almost comes to a dead stop
.
He's going to the pits.
There's an Austin Healy carthat's right behind him and he's
(05:54):
like oh no, I'm about to rearin this Jaguar.
So he takes a hard left andtries to scoot around the Jaguar
and try to, you know, safely,avoid him.
And tried to, you know, safelyavoid him.
But because this Austin Healyis also doing 150 miles an hour
at this time, he starts to losecontrol and instead of
gracefully passing around theside of the Jaguar, he starts
fishtailing Gracefully.
Yeah, he winds up fishtailingout into the middle of the track
(06:17):
and, as all this happens, thefastest car on the track that
everybody expected to win comesroaring into play the Mercedes
300 SLR Beautiful car, by theway.
He comes roaring into thepicture doing 150 miles an hour.
Nate (06:30):
He had an atomic engine.
That was the secret.
Unfortunately, no one lived.
Shaun (06:39):
The nuclear blast wiped out everybody in a 10-mile
radius, as the Mercedes all said.
He's cruising along in 150.
And Austin Healy shoots rightin front of him and he has
literally no time to react.
Things are just going downhill.
He has one chance to do onething and all he does is he
shoots up his hand to signal thedriver behind him that it's
(06:59):
about to go down and you need toget out of the way in a hurry.
The driver behind him that gotsignaled was actually the other
Mercedes driver.
Go down and you need to get outof the way in a hurry.
The driver behind him that gotsignaled was actually the other
Mercedes driver.
So nice little bit of teamworkthere, I guess.
However, this move would infact save the life of the driver
behind him, but the actualdriver of the Mercedes the one
who threw up his hand and wasabout to go into a wreck well,
he didn't do so well.
I should point out too, ifyou're thinking about the cars
(07:21):
that they have in this race outto, if you're thinking about the
cars that they have in thisrace, think speed racer so
basically like open top cars,you know, all swoopy, kind of
looks like a bar of soap.
Nate (07:29):
Yes, yes, no safety features.
That for correct the image,because I was thinking of like
more of a.
There's a little box, not boxcars, but those cars they race
off road and stuff gotcha.
Shaun (07:40):
Yep, nope, these are like speed racer style cars, like
completely open top, tiny littlelike six inch windshield, no
seat belts, no safety things.
Real man racing.
Nate (07:49):
Should I assume the fate of the dude from RoboCop is very
similar to the fate of this guy?
Wait, which guy from RoboCop?
The one?
You got hit by a car.
You got splattered and turnedinto like mush.
Shaun (08:01):
Oh, this guy.
No, this guy didn't actuallylike get swamped in a
radioactive fluid and mutate.
I assume you're talking aboutthat guy yes, that guy.
Nate (08:10):
Well, I'm not talking about the mutate, but I am
talking about the hit by car andturned into goo Gotcha.
Shaun (08:15):
Nope, nope.
What happens is actually farmore horrifying.
So we got the Mercedes and he'sabout to rear-end this
Austin-Healey and, because ofthe aerodynamic shape of these
cars, the Austin-Healey actuallyacted as a ramp for the
Mercedes.
So instead of like a rear-endbonk, think of more like a
rear-end and I'm going to justshoot off of him.
Like you know, almost like aDukes of Hazzard sort of thing,
(08:38):
that's amazing.
And I should also let you knowthis Horrible yes.
Nate (08:44):
It's horrific.
Off Top Topic does acknowledgethe tragedy.
However, it was also amazing.
Shaun (08:49):
I should also let you know that this is one of the
most popular live events in theworld at the time, and there are
massive crowds the entirelength of the course, especially
around this pit area that we'retalking about.
I mean, you can see a pictureof it there just a wall of
people as far as the eye can see, just like crowded up to the
track as close as they can,because, again, there's like no
safety regulations back then.
(09:10):
They're just like you want tosee the race.
Get as close as you can, touchthe cars as they drive by, if
you dare, we don't care.
Touch the car, graze your handyeah, I'm assuming, literally
there's like pictures of peoplelike leaning over the track,
like reaching out and being likehey, driver.
Nate (09:23):
Dude, there's not a world that they did not do that often.
Shaun (09:27):
Yeah, yeah.
So, anywho, the Mercedeslaunches through the air off the
back of that Austin Healey andhe flies through the air, starts
coming down and perfectly timesit.
So he hits the barricade on theside of the racetrack and his
car probably begins tosomersault end over end through
that packed crowd of people at120 miles an hour.
(09:49):
The car almost immediatelybursts into flames and starts
shooting flaming car partseverywhere, including the engine
, comes dismantled and rollslike a bowling ball through the
crowd, cutting people in half,smashing them, spraying, you
know burning oil and burning gaseverywhere.
The car itself, you know,flipping end over end, slamming
into people, crushing them,flattening them out.
Axle comes loose and spinsaround, killing people left and
(10:12):
right.
Best part, the hood comes loose,nate.
The hood comes loose and goesflying through the air like a
discus at 150 miles an hour,chopping off people's heads,
literally.
People got decapitated by aflying hood through the crowd.
So not only that the flyinghood going through the crowd is
(10:33):
bad enough, but one thing thathappened with this car is to
make it the lightest carpossible.
They had a magnesium alloyframe because it is nice, light,
strong.
But also one problem is itmelts very easily and tends to
catch on fire.
So now, all of a sudden, wehave uh molten balls of
magnesium frame flying throughthe air, hitting people, melting
(10:54):
them uh yeah, I like shaking myhead yeah, the axle popped off,
uh, crushing a bunch of people.
Uh, the drive.
Well, actually I'll go to thenext part.
Nate (11:05):
So I was picturing the end of that.
The driver gets out.
He's like kind of waves hishands like I'm okay.
Shaun (11:12):
Well, actually I can go into that right now.
The driver well, he wasbasically thrown from the car
because, you know, no seatbeltsor anything and when this thing
goes end over end, it justbasically yeeted him right out
the top of it, him right out thetop of it, and he hit the
ground.
And you know, when you hit theground at 150, you're basically
dead instantly.
So they say, even with thehelmet on.
His skull was crushed as soonas he hit that pavement With the
helmet on.
Nate (11:32):
His head was fine, his body was not.
Shaun (11:36):
The best part was, though , his body went flying the
opposite direction of the car,shooting across the track and
landed in front of the pit crewthat was about to work on him,
including the replacement driverwatching this all and his wife,
who was waiting in the pit crewto say hi to him and, you know,
wish him well on the race.
Nate (11:50):
That is amazing.
Shaun (11:51):
I mean, it's terrible, that's awful.
Nate (11:54):
Oh my God, I just that is.
Shaun (11:58):
I know it's like somebody just wrote this I don't know,
but oh my God but, oh my god,that is I.
Just here we are laughing at awoman who probably had to go
through more therapy thananybody in the history.
Nate (12:08):
There they're waiting to go, and also this buys us flop
and his wife's like yep that wasmy exact thought too.
Shaun (12:13):
She's like standing with flowers back.
Oh my, I'll be here soon.
Nate (12:16):
I love him so, oh god it was like the camera pans in her
face, just look like okay, evenbetter.
Shaun (12:22):
I like to think of.
The fact is like thereplacement driver had been like
eyeing that, hit the otherdriver's wife for a long time
and this is like his time tomake his move.
Be like so widowed now.
Huh like immediately.
Yeah, he's just like she's likecrying over the corpse.
He's like taps around the show.
Be like we should go out todinner later and talk about this
.
I don't think that's actuallywhat happened, but that would be
yeah, kind of yeah, of course.
(12:42):
Yeah, I'm guessing they're bothpretty traumatized.
Nate (12:45):
Yeah, this is off.
Yes, I acknowledge this isterrible.
This actually happened.
It's awful, but still I'm sorry.
Shaun (12:51):
In the meantime Will.
This body is like laying thereand people are being traumatized
.
To add to some fun of it.
So we got the flaming carwreckage like in the middle of
this crowd and people are justlike running around dying and on
fire and stuff.
Our department shows up andthey decide to put out the fire
with water.
But what they didn't knowapparently, was either they
didn't know this happened orthey didn't know that it was a
(13:12):
magnesium frame on the car.
But apparently when you hitmagnesium of magnesium fire with
water, it explodes.
So they show up to put out thewater or put out the fire.
Water hits that frame and theframe explodes a second time.
Show water or put out the fire,water hits that frame and the
frame explodes a second time.
Showering people with moltenmagnesium Basically a giant
fireball happened a second timeIn a matter of seconds.
82 people were killed and asmany as 178 were maimed, though
(13:34):
some say the number is muchhigher and also they say it
wasn't injured.
Maimed was the term they usedand that sounds much worse than
injured.
Yeah yeah, injured's like oh hehas some burns, mame's like yeah
, mame's like my arm's gone.
Nate (13:47):
Yeah, like this is some serious.
Shaun (13:50):
So it was also so bad.
Basically, they had priestsgoing around giving last rites
at people because there were somany people like laying there
dying and bleeding out.
Now, nate, if you would likesome pictures of it, if you go
into our little chat thing thatwe have, there should be like a
little text channel calledlamans and you can see some of
the races, including like apicture of recreating how the
car hit the barricade, went,flying over it and flipping down
(14:10):
it.
Giant piles of fire everywhere.
Someone made a cartoon yeah,yeah, you can actually see, uh,
footage of this happening too,and I can't tell if it's actual
like footage or if it's like.
You know, when they takepictures and they can recreate a
video out of that.
Back in the day it might havebeen one of those kind of things
, but yeah, you can see itflying through the crowd.
Not good times, not good timesat all.
(14:31):
But if there is one thing aboutthis whole incident that true,
that shows us that god trulydoes smile on us in our darkest
times, nate's like the car wreck.
It happened off of one side ofthe track.
The dead body shot off theother side of the track.
So that means the track isclear, the race can keep going.
Nate, yep.
The higher-ups said nope, trackis clear, we're going to keep
on racing.
Everybody keep going, wow, soyep.
(14:53):
And also too this is one thingthat's easy to forget this track
is eight miles, so this wreckonly happened in one tiny spot.
Lot of drivers who don't evenknow this is going on.
There's people on the otherside of the track watching who
have no idea this is going on.
So, yeah, just picture you're aracing car driver puttering
around, everything's goingnormally, and you come around a
corner and there's just fireeverywhere and dead bodies.
It's like you're like what do Ido about this?
(15:13):
Oh, you keep racing, son,track's clear, you keep doing it
, go, go, go.
Yeah, exactly, technically, theguy who won the race was a
Mercedes driver that didn't diein the wreck and they got
signaled and actually made itout alive.
However, at the last minute ofthe race, mercedes decided it's
probably going to be bad opticsif we win this after everybody
died.
So they bowed out of the raceat the last moment and Jaguar
(15:38):
kind of the car that started thewhole wreck.
They basically gave themoptions, like you know, kind of
bad optics on this.
You can bow out if you want to,and they're like nope, we're
here to win.
And they finished the race.
They technically won, which, um,you know, some people took that
the wrong way and were prettymad at jaguar.
I don't think jaguar reallycared, because they're jaguar.
Uh, the race director wouldquestion about it.
He came up with a series ofstatements to justify the
(16:00):
reasons to keep the race going.
Um, some of them were, some ofthem were actually pretty like
reasonable.
Like if they called off therace right then there everybody
would have left at once, streetswould have been jammed,
emergency vehicles would havebeen stuck, they couldn't do
what.
Uh, nobody would have been ableto get there, and you know that
kind of makes sense yeah, lookat that, that lens.
Nate (16:19):
You know you kind of understand the.
The question is were theythinking that, yeah, was that a
happy happenstance?
Shaun (16:28):
or yeah, he should have probably stopped talking there,
because he kind of went on to dosay other stuff, like quoting
the line the show must go on andsaid that other races had had
wrecks and kept going.
And there it is, yep.
And then he also pointed outthat if the race didn't finish,
the sponsors and other companiesmight sue for a breach of
contract and that'd be a moneyloss for Le Mans.
And finally, the last reasonyou throw is the old and anyway,
(16:49):
I didn't even have theauthority to cancel a race.
The other dude had theauthority and he was on vacation
.
It wasn't even my job to makethis call.
So, yeah, honestly, the dudeshould have shut up right after
the.
You know everybody would havejammed.
Nate (17:01):
It would have been fine, yep with, just had we caught,
had we canceled.
It would actually cause moreproblems.
We kept it going, so peoplestayed in like that's all, and
then you move on.
But no people front back then,didn't?
Shaun (17:16):
there's like no, oh, it wasn't my fault yeah, picture,
like some, you know, dude off tothe side during that speech,
like give him like the knock itoff sign, like no, no, no, cut
it out, stop talking.
Frantically waving, you'remaking this worse.
So yeah, in the end 80 to 84people were dead Spectators,
(17:37):
including the race driver Eitherby flying debris or from the
fire or the explosion the firedepartment did, or so on and so
forth.
A further 120 to 178 wereinjured, although some people
say the number is probably a lothigher and they kind of like
tried to tone it down a littlebit.
You know Again, sponsors andstuff it remains the most
catastrophic crash inmotorsports history.
(17:57):
A special mass was held in themorning at Le Mans Cathedral for
the first funerals of thevictims.
Basically, they fall out fromthis there's a temporary ban on
motorsports in the countries ofFrance, spain, switzerland and
West Germany and a few othernations until they say
racetracks could be brought to ahigher safety standard.
I think most of them were backinto racing in less than a year,
(18:18):
so they probably didn't carethat much.
Nate (18:20):
Again, it was also fucking 1955.
You know, in 1955, you can getaway with you know, just it was
a different time.
Shaun (18:30):
Yeah, they didn't want to be blown up in a race.
They shouldn't have gone to therace.
That's their fault.
Yeah, it's kind of like if youdidn't want to get molested, you
shouldn't have gone over toUncle Slippy Fist's house.
It's always the victim to beblamed back then.
I'm not wrong.
No, you weren't.
As far as the blame, well, theyrapidly tried to put the blame
on anybody and everybody theycould.
(18:50):
At first they tried to blamethe Jaguar driver for slowing
down too fast, but that neverreally stuck because I mean, how
can you really fault somebodyfor slowing down too fast?
The racing body also tried toclaim that magnesium frame
explosion from the firedepartment tried to put out.
Also tried to claim thatmagnesium frame explosion from
the fire department tried to putit out.
They initially tried to claimthe fact that Mercedes had added
explosive chemicals to theirfuel to make the car go faster.
(19:13):
So they're basically like nope,nope, that whole magnesium
frame explosion that had nothingto do with us.
But eventually, after a year ofinvestigation, the fault was
determined to be drumroll,please, the fault of no one,
just an accident no one couldhave seen coming.
Nope, not one person could haveseen this comingroll, please.
The fault of no one, just anaccident.
No one could have seen coming.
Nope, not one person could haveseen this coming.
You know the track that had 150mile an hour cars on it.
(19:34):
There's design for 60 mile anhours.
One thing that came outside ofthis so the guy who's waiting in
the pits to replace the onedriver who watched his buddy
like turn as a flaming ball offlesh in front of him, yeah, he
went on to invent, uh, what'sknown as the uh fitch barrels, I
believe is what they're called,and those are the safety
barrels you see, on the side ofhighways that are full of sand,
so if somebody goes out ofcontrol and slams into them,
(19:54):
it's just like a sand barricadethat slows them down.
He invented those.
He became a champion for racingsafety.
After this whole thing, it's I.
I could see how that'd be youruh takeaway from seeing that
kind of wreck yeah, I just.
Nate (20:06):
But the one thing I popped my head is like so you know
what happened was he wasstanding there watching the
tragedy in front of him and hegoes those people like those
cars are sorry, those cars areplowed with those people like
they're bags of sand.
Shaun (20:21):
Yeah, bags of sand that's probably exactly what it was.
He watched it.
The car like slow down afterhit one really fat dude.
He's like that, man's like abag of sand.
Nate (20:32):
He's like people are like, oh wow, this is really helping
people around.
I was like, yeah, just imaginea bunch of people standing side
by side.
Shaun (20:38):
We tried to do that with orphaned children at first, but
it turns out the orphanageswouldn't let us just take as
many kids as we wanted.
Nate (20:44):
Here children stand here and be a barrier.
The way they compensated forthat was the bags of sand weigh
as much as a child he's likethese are for children.
Shaun (20:54):
I like that.
So the Austin Healey the carthat was the impromptu ramp
afterwards in 1969, it wasactually bought at an auction
for 155 pounds, or theequivalent of $3,000 in 2023
money that seems kind of likenot much money for a piece of
history, to be honest.
Nate (21:10):
In December 2011, yeah, you could say, oh, it's bad,
blah, blah, blah, but I meanit's still history.
Shaun (21:17):
Yeah, I mean somewhere.
I'm sure somebody has like.
Nate (21:22):
Hitler's mustache saved in a jar somewhere.
Shaun (21:25):
There's yeah, 100%, Someone out there has, yeah,
somewhere there's just an upperlip with a mustache on it
floating in a pickle jar.
They never know what happenedto his body.
Yeah, so in December 2011, thatcar was auctioned again and was
sold for 843,000 pounds, orclose to a million bucks
nowadays.
Because of this, mercedesdecided to bow out of Le Mans
racing for 30 years, notreturning until 1985.
(21:49):
And then they raced again foranother 14 years until they had
a second spectacular wreck thatkilled a bunch of people and, oh
no, sorry, it was a non-fatalcrash in 1999.
Nate (21:57):
Oh boo, I was like yeah, whatever you do, don't Jaguar in
your race, yeah.
Shaun (22:04):
There's ever a Mercedes car in a race.
You need to be very careful ofthat because they might kill you
.
So there you go, nate.
That's pretty much the long andthe short of that race.
Kind of a shorter episode, butyeah, I dig it.
Yeah, we got to the point.
A lot of people died.
Not good times Don't crowd nextto a racetrack, apparently.
But yeah, man, especially man,especially with like that hood,
(22:25):
flying off and decapitatingpeople, could you imagine just
standing there watching thathappen?
Nate (22:28):
it's like minding your own business.
Shaun (22:30):
The car goes vaulting next to you and dude next to his
head just flies off from a hood.
Nate (22:34):
It reminded me of what was that?
What movie was that?
It was a like a boat movie.
You remember that b2 ghost shipand I never.
By the way, I've never seen themovie, but I've seen the.
And part of the trailer wasthis wire goes and like snaps,
it goes through a bunch ofpeople.
That's reminding me of this,just those tethering wires yeah,
apparently those literally willgo through somebody.
(22:55):
Yeah, it's like I justmentioned this thing just flying
through the air.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's prettymuch it.
Shaun (23:08):
That's what I mean.
It wouldn't have happened to me, because I don't like races
Sucks to be them but that's whatthey get for being a race fan,
right.
Nate (23:11):
Well, I guess it's the unwritten thing.
Like you're going to a place,because even now in NASCAR there
is not a 0% chance whetherNASCAR cars can like get a
massive wreck thrown in the airand just you'll land on somebody
.
Shaun (23:27):
A lot of people in those crowds are actively hoping that
happens and they get a seat.
I mean they don't want the carto land on them, but I mean if
it killed somebody else they'dbe absolutely fine with that.
Nate (23:34):
Be like I gotta see it I mean, I think there are, even as
I have to appear from, you canprobably look it up, I'm not
gonna.
Um, hasn't there been timeswhere like wheels have come up,
cars and like hit people in thestands?
Yep, that has happened.
Yeah, it's like I could haveswore.
I've seen like images of that.
Shaun (23:51):
There's also a Simpson scene you might be thinking of
two or somebody got crushed by atire.
That same way.
Well, yeah, but that was alsobased off of a real sit.
Yeah, yeah.
Nate (23:59):
Simpsons did it.
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