'till my ears bleed!

[BigH]

It's funny how most people associate a place along with the noise. Me too.
In my minds eye I recall the sound and sight of the Astons viewed from a pile of breeze blocks in a half built hotel next to the Mulsanne, with the sound coming through the trees, a sort of dopplered shade. The 333SP's are getting back on the gas after getting around Mulsanne corner. The Mazdas on the pit straight, with the noise bouncing around the grandstands and seemingly straight up my trouser leg, and the Olive Garden going brake-floor it-brake at Arnage.
The Olive Garden car was a Lola Judd V10 I think, I haven't heard the one about the drivers Andy, maybe the Italian sponsor had them whacked for a late debt or the wrong choice of pasta sauce.
It's from my Japs eye that I recall my testicles rattling in Hounslow.
H

[BigH]

Americans! Using a French chassis?! There'll be a diplomatic incident surely. What are they going to do, put it on the back of a flat bed transporter and fire it at the Palestinians?
H

[Steve Pyro]

The first year of the C5R Corvettes I sat high up in an empty stand on Thursday night and recall the noise echoing and reflecting within the stand.

The 911 GT3s can be painful on the ears when they change gear.  Particularly, standing on the infield just past the Esses on the run down to Tetre Rouge - ouch  

[Robbo SPS]

Used ti live under Concorde flight path ( Slough ) and that made the fireplace vibrate !!


But the car thats made me want to go home was the Lister Storm , 1000kms, november 2003, stoof at the top of the main grandstand.

OUCH, and a 3 hour headache

[Fax]

By all accounts the 3 liter Matra's of the early seventies are the loudest machines to have ever graced the Sarthe, people still talk about fillings being rattled loose.  As for recent years, at Daytona you can stand right down next to the wall and I reckon the cars that hurt my ears the worst were the Porsche 911 GT3's.
John

[Gilles]

Early Panoz wern't too discrete too

[Barry]

the Porsche's
 

Opening laps of this years LMES at Silvertstone, about 10 Porsche's nose to tail on the start finish straight for about 5 laps. It wasn't so much the volume, but it was the constant pitch, you could almost feel your eardrums denting.

[Bobblehat]

Good call Barry, the 10 Porkers at Silverstone hurt a lot at the start, I could still feal them on Sunday and Monday.

My favorate sound at LM was the LM Marcos. You could be sitting in your seat and just follow the car round the track by sound alone. Plus it made the ground shake.....

[Rhino]

For me it's the Aston Martin of 89. Watching it on the pit straight in front of the grandstands the noise was loud but the vibration given out made me feel hungry. Strange.

[Matt Harper]

Yup, me too. The beautiful, beautiful noise of that Aston Martin AMR1 on a trailing throttle and down-shift 'blipping', on the short-chute between the esses and Tetre Rouge was awesome.
The Saubers that won that same race were equally musical, aside from the 62 car that ran the last two hours of the race jammed in 5th gear. Even so, the torque produced, allowed that motor to pick itself up from about 600rpm at Virage Ford, to around 4000rpm by the time it rounded the Dunlop curve - very impressive.
Most annoying? That bloody Audi in 2000 that backfired at each shift point - it sounded like a gunshot every time it up-shifted. Pissed me off no end, it did.......  

[Fax]

Matt,
Would agree about the 2000 Audi's.  That backfire became annoying as hell.  First noticed it at Sebring that year and hoped that it was just something to do with the engine mapping for that race but it was there at Le Mans as well.
The most annoying exhaust note of all?  Current F1 cars!  That shrill, high pitched whine gets old real fast, especially when you throw in the pop & fart of traction control.  The IRL cars have a fairly annoying note as well, just sound rattley and cheap.
John

[Steve Pyro]

Sorry, bit off topic (what's new)

The Who, Charlton Athletic Football Ground, May 1976 - 120 dB at 50 meters from the stage  

Play it Loud  

[Andy Zarse]

Sorry, bit off topic (what's new)

The Who, Charlton Athletic Football Ground, May 1976 - 120 dB at 50 meters from the stage  

Play it Loud  

You won't get fooled again!

Two of our twits are Chartlon supporters and insist on singing, to the tune of Mull of Kintyre,  the following when drunk. It becomes most wearisome.

Valley Floyd Road,
Oh mist rolling in from the Thames,
My desire is always to be near,
Oh Valley Floyd road.

Far have I travelled
And much have I seen...
Blah blah blah...

Absolute crap!

[Andy Zarse]

Yup, me too. The beautiful, beautiful noise of that Aston Martin AMR1 on a trailing throttle and down-shift 'blipping', on the short-chute between the esses and Tetre Rouge was awesome.
The Saubers that won that same race were equally musical, aside from the 62 car that ran the last two hours of the race jammed in 5th gear. Even so, the torque produced, allowed that motor to pick itself up from about 600rpm at Virage Ford, to around 4000rpm by the time it rounded the Dunlop curve - very impressive.
Most annoying? That bloody Audi in 2000 that backfired at each shift point - it sounded like a gunshot every time it up-shifted. Pissed me off no end, it did.......  

1989 was the one and only year (and never again!) I took a bird to LM. She reckonned the Aston's noise got her all "hot" (for want of another phrase). I think she had a thing about Brian Redman too.

Anyhow, I loved them, they weren't quite on the pace of the Jags and Mercs but were just glorious cars. There was one for sale in Duncan Hamilton's shop window in Bagshot about a year later. It's a shame the program was killed off by internal Ford politics.

I remember the Merc stuck in 5th too. Wasn't it the Schumacher car?

[Fax]

That 1989 Aston is a lovely car.  There's one floating around over here and shows up pretty regularly at historic Group C/IMSA GTP meetings.  I've never seen it really given any stick though, probably couldn't afford to repair if shunted or blown.  The only ones you ever see really thrashed are the 962's.  There's enough parts still lying around for those to run them hard.  The Merc that was stuck in gear was the Mauro Baldi car but I can't remember off hand who he was sharing the car with, I don't think it was Schumacher though.
Fax