-
Credits
Photography by Rob Overy for Moto Historics
-
Le Mans Classic
This year marked the 10th edition of the famous Le Mans classic. The biyearly event has been a steeple of historic racing since 2002. The weekend saw six grids made up of different eras of endurance racers between 1923 and 1981. There were also a number of support races, which included Porsche classic, Jaguar classic, Endurance Racing Legends and Group C racing.
Our 1987 world championship winning Jaguar XJR8/9 ran in the Group C race amongst a jaw-dropping grid of over 40 Group C cars! There were a huge range of cars from different manufacturers spanning between 1983 and 1993. The 10-lap race saw racing legends pushed to their limits, many of these had not raced in anger since their original Group C races up to 40 years ago.
Having raced at the two inaugural Group C support races to the main 24 hours race in 2004, firstly in a twin turbo V6 Silk Cut Jaguar XJR 11 and in 2008 with his trusty ‘Pinky’ RLR 962, with third row starts for both races , it had always been a dream of Henry’s to race a V12 Jaguar at Le Mans ever since watching them race there in period.
Like over 100,000 other British fans, he watched this actual car race as an updated XJR 9 LM in 1988 - it is the ‘in car camera Jaguar’ featured in all the period videos and then finished 8th overall at Le Mans in 1989, the last year Henry attended in period, making it all the more special to experience that V12 howl from behind the wheel some 34 years later!
At the top of the table Silk Cut Jaguars took every step of the podium. Jon Minshaw and Phil Keen took the overall win with a dominant performance in their XJR-9. The podium was rounded off by an XJR-14 and XJR-12.