Day and night
Another integral part of the Le Mans race is night driving. It is part of both the traditional 24 Hours – in fact, the ŠKODA Sport was given two extra headlights for the night section before the first Le Mans race – and the Le Mans Classic. The individual runs are scheduled so that each group, made up according to the age of the cars, runs in daylight and in the dark.
“The darkness erases the differences in engine performance, it’s the same for everyone,” says Velebný, backing up his claim with a jump of twenty spots up the results list. “It’s a bit of a complication that part of the track is illuminated, for example the finishing straight and some of the corners or chicanes, while in the rest we are reliant on the car’s lights,” adds Kafka.
The Le Mans race includes a traditional night drive.
Nevertheless, they consider the night ride to be part of the race and its atmosphere, as well as an experience of a lifetime. In fact, it’s like the entire participation of a seventy-year-old Škoda in this motorsport festival. “We thank our ancestors for having designed and built this beautiful car back in the day and for driving it here to Le Mans. Thanks to them, we can race here now,” summarises Michal Velebný on behalf of both drivers.
Driver change during the race
Although the ŠKODA Sport crew was primarily concerned with getting the car back on track at Le Mans, they did not give up their sporting ambitions either. The Czech crew finished 47th out of 74 cars in its category in the overall results, and even 43rd in the standings when recalculated according to the coefficient influenced by power and engine capacity.
“The car was able to deal with the busy weekend thanks to the usual meticulous maintenance and we avoided any major technical problems. For our 73-year-old car, this is an amazing performance,” said Michal Velebný of the entire race weekend.