Throwback Thursday, July 3, 2014

This Thursday we travel back to the year 2000! The year 2000 was pretty amazing in the American LeMans Series where the battles up front were between this car, the BMW V12 LMR, the Audi R8R, and the beastly Panoz LMP1 Roadster.

This shot, taken on my trusty old film camera (Editors note: what is film?), is of Bill Auberlen muscling up to turn 2 at Sears Point.  On this day, he and teammate Jean-Marc Gounon would finish 4th, immediately behind the sister car piloted by Jörg Müller and J.J. Lehto.  The race was won by the Audi R8 of Dindo Capello and Alan McNish.

Those were the proverbial "good ol' days"... 6 litreV12 powered Beemers, twin turbo V8 powered Audis (o.k. not the loudest car in the world), the 6 litre wide-open V8 of the Panoz LMP Roadster and the impossibly loud Judd V10 that powered Lola prototypes (basically the V10 Judd supplied to F1 teams).  This was before all the new-fangled technology, lithium batteries and laser-beams that pass for prototype racing these days.  I'm glad I had the opportunity to see this kind of racing at such a great venue.

-Andrew