The Rookie a 5 minute story by Charles Roberts.

 

          Good afternoon and welcome to radio Le Mans, my name is Clive Robinson and I’ll be joined later, by Richard Adams; he’s stuck in the traffic,.  The weather for the weekend is perfect for racing, there is no rain forecast, so it looks like the cars will be on slick tyres for the whole race.  The usual teams are here with the battle between Audi and Nissan set to continue from last year, but we also have the likes of Mercedes Benz with a new car, Toyota, another new vehicle.  Aston Martin are here with three of their cars, but the talk of the paddock are the newcomers, with the youngest ever driver, and oldest driver in this year’s race.

          Team Webster, as they call themselves, consist of Uncle and nephew Mike and Toby Webster.  Toby being the youngest ever competitor to race here at Le Mans, at the age of sixteen, and his uncle Mike at the age of fifty eight is the oldest in this year’s race.  He is not the oldest ever, that record belongs to an American, whose name I’ll come up with in a minute, who was sixty three.

          The car was designed by young Toby and built by his dad, Jim, and Uncle Mike in the family garage.  It is a beautiful looking car and wouldn’t have looked out of place on the grid in the fifties or sixties.  However in this race looks come in second because reliability is paramount, if your car can’t race for the twenty four hours, then its looks count for nothing.  Having said that team Webster surprised everyone here at Le Mans during free practice back in April when young Toby went through the speed trap on the Mulsarne Straight at three hundred and eighty six kilometres an hour, a good ten kilometres an hour faster than the field.

          But speed is one thing, reliability is key to this gruelling race, twenty four hours of racing at top speed, refuelling every two to four hours, changing tyres every four to six hours, and changing drivers at two or four hour intervals.  That is the reality of these next twenty four hours, can the newcomers of Team Webster manage all that?  Will their beautiful car last the distance?

          In qualifying they managed to do the third fastest time which put them third on the grid, although this race has a rolling start,  where the cars form up into their grid positions as they drive round the thirteen point six kilometres of this track which consists of race track and public roads, yes you can actually drive your family car on parts of this racing circuit; and people do for the other fifty weeks in the year, but those roads are closed off for two weeks of the year, for practice in April, and for the race itself.  I am going to take a break now, but will see you in ten minutes.