Hell Patrol
or are they just not serious about this race?
I haven't seen any Japanese teams doing well since the mazda's rx7
Mugen was doin well this time but sucked afterward.
That depends if you are talking about teams or manufacturers.
Team Goh (Japanese) won last year (2004) driving an Audi R8; however as has been said only one Japanese manufacturer has won (the Mazda 787) outright.
To say that the Japanese are not serious about Le Mans or Endurance racing is just wrong (sorry but it is); remember that only Porsche have every really consistently dominated at Le Mans, even Audis recent record falls far short of Porsche's.
Have a look at the following list of overall winners
Le Mans
Winners 1923 - 2003
Omnis
I wish I could see those old starts again.
Do you mean the starts with the drivers running to the cars?
If so I have a bit of trivia for you.
One of the last times this type of start was used was the 1969 Le Mans, in which Jacky Ickx (who quite rightly considered the starts to be dangerous) walked to his GT40 and carefully tightened his straps before setting off last.
His protest did his race no harm, with 1969 going down as one of the best (and closest) Le Mans ever. Ickx's GT40 and the Porsche 908 of Herrmann swapping the lead up to three of four times a lap.
This continued right to the last hour with the GT40 just taking the flag, it would be the GT40's last victory at Le Mans (Porsche dominated in the next two decades with 12 wins) and the last of the old style starts.
I have the '69 race on video and its amazing, well worth getting some footage if you can.
