24

Twenty four hours....how hard can you push yourself and car in one thousand four hundred and forty minutes. Over thirty three hundred miles,  in a single day.

It's waking up in Seattle and going to sleep in Daytona, give or take a few miles. It's an astonishing feet to punish body and machine for glory and speed, speeds in excess of two hundred and fifteen miles per hour.

It's the ultimate paved test of soul, giving, engineering.

Pushing hard on Sunday for the one minute fifty run through the cones, or the Wednesday track day that was the final nail in the coffin of your last set of tires is a test.

When you get out of the car in the paddock, catch your breath and sip a water reminiscing on the last run. Lungs pounding, heart still well over a hundred, hands are sweaty and your right leg won't stop shaking.

The brakes where beginning to fade, the tires had gotten greasy and the steering fluid was starting to boil, thankfully you came in when you did.

Now imagine that's been happening for the last forty minutes, twenty more until your scheduled to come in and you've had an RSR as a shadow for over an hour.

The 24h, Le Mans, the greatest single road race in the world, the Porsche curves, Mulsaine, the ferris wheel and the night.

The darkness, that  just hangs there, looming out in front of you like a curtain.

it's the mind that is the one going through the greatest test in that darkness, over all those hours. The speed doesn't slow,  the eyes have to keep up, fighting to process the information now with half the time to adjust.

What's over the next rise, around the next corner, what's the weather gonna be like at the other end. 

Deer, ever have to wonder if that was a deer. Will it still be there in three and half minutes.

The darkness quiets the outside world, but the minds screaming at information doesn't give way.

Then dawn and the "Magic hour" the air cools, the light comes, tires stick and the fire is rekindled again, only nine more hours to go.

It's the 24

Photo courtesy of unknown internet