These Girls wern't the only attraction at the 1984 Le Mans, Jaguar had their own sexy models to show off!
tony a2z drove this Jaguar XJR5 in the 1984 Le Mans 24 Hours for Bob Tullius, who gave him his professional start back in 1966
Convinced to get back in Le Mans, Jaguar would serve up the XJR5, a sleek machine with 12 ponies under the hood ready to scream a crowd-pleasing 222 miles on backstretches. Not as light as the group C vehicles, it was still the right amount of 'wow' to entertain the masses, even sitting still. Yes, after 20 years of sitting in the stands of Le Mans, Jaguar threw its hat back into the ring in style.
Co-drivers were John Watson, Formula 1 driver for McLaren; and Claude Bella Lena, a successful French driver.
They qualified 19th of 53 cars, and had worked up to eighth place by about 6 am. By that time, all three team cars were reporting gearbox shifting problems. After a pit stop & fresh tires, I took my turn in the car. Tony a2z had fresh tires, so proceeded to warm them up and break them in. As he entered the fast right-hand turn before the Mulsanne straight, the car suddenly started to understeer badly and crashed into the barrier.
#40 was hit hard on the front left corner. The radio wasn't working for some reason and Tony a2z couldn't tell the pit-crew his situation. So, he coached the Jaguar along the course, noticing the oil pressure was low. When he finally made the pit-stop, the mechs found that a oil line and oil radiator were damaged. The could patch it up and put it back in the race, but the Jag officials decided not to take the change of the V12 failing. They felt it would damage their reputation in the public eye.
Understeer is when the car turns less sharply than the driver is expecting. In this case, a deflating tire resulted in the Jaguar's steering dynamics changing significantly. Goodyear inspected their tire and made the determination that the crash was a result of the tire losing air. They only told this to the Jaguar brass and Pit crew.
Eventually, all Jaguars were stabled due to a lack of preparation for such a long race. A bit oblivious to the demands of an endurance race, or its definition, no filters were set up in the Hewland gearboxes. So, debris from the box's innards and strenuous driving resulted in the inability to shift. The bearings wore out and the gears got rounded off. As a poor consolation, #40 would've received the same fate. The Jaguar top brass were fine with the determination; as long as the engine did'nt fail. The Group-C Lancia's suffered the same fate. Since Porsche had been doing this type of racing for quite a while, they won the contest. Possibly more on experience than raw speed. But, lets not call this a Tortoise and the Hare story... Porsche might not like that much.
Now, Tony offers the masses of motor sports followers a way to reconnect with auto racing history through his apparel company, a2z Racer Gear a2zracergear.com whichis known for its line-up of accurately designed vintage racing apparel.
You can find other racing stories at www.a2zracer.com
