956

In 1984 I was 10 years old, I had no idea where France was. I was familiar with Nascar racing, I lived to race BMX and Porsche was just a name on one of my Hot Wheels.

With the 84th running of the 24 hours of LeMans just around the corner and attempting to build a Porsche model I have found myself recounting memories of how they both came to be a part of my identity.

My father was always an avid car guy, there was countless magazines to troll through as a child. He may never gotten the chance to build that custom '56 Ford pickup he always wanted. Despite the responsibilities of work, family, commuting, raising two young boys, he would build the most amazing model cars.

Looking back, I'm not sure where he found the time or patience to put that level of detail into each one. The paint was always flawless, smooth and shiny, decals laid down with mechanical precision, nuts and bolts detailed, speedometers numbered freely by hand. I've built a few, but not a one that could ever compare.

With my anticipation building for the drama to unfold on Saturday I couldn't help myself from thinking back to being 10 and steeling down from the shelf a model of the 1984 Newman Porsche 956, number 7.

Parents out, older brother technically making sure I didn't set the house on fire, I would carefully take it onto the kitchen floor and begin my love affair with racing Porsches.

I would play until I heard my brother rustling in the other room. Repeatedly it would take place, until the heat from my sweaty little hands finally lifted a decal from the body side. The jig was up, I tried to hide it by getting it wet and reapplying it. However my fear made me tremble and I couldn't make it line up.

My brother was also highly adept at modeling, but the last thing I could have done was to ask for assistance in my cover up.

I don't know if I got in trouble, I'm sure I did, and it was well deserved. It's been over 30 years now, I don't remember.

It's that shape that stays, the fascinating speed as it sat there on that shelf. The fabled legacy now of a company that has won the greatest endurance race in the world some 16 times now.

It's perfecting a design that raced for almost 20 years and was competitive the entire time. As manufactures struggled to design a car that could defeat it, it continued it's dominance.

That car has left a mark on all that have experienced it and that model left a mark on me. It's said that it forgives your ignorance and applauds your courage all while demanding more then your able to give to it. Some may say it's the single greatest racing car ever to dawn a set of slicks.

True or not I'll never know,  nor will I ever care. It was the big bang for me, the race in my heart had begun.