While there are a number of 24-hour endurance races all across the world, there is none quite like the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Contested for the first time in 1923 at the Circuit de la Sarthe, near Le Mans, France, the event is the longest continually running sports car endurance race in the world. The SRT® Viper GTS-R has graced Victory Lane in the legendary event in the past and will compete this year for the first time since 2000.

“The 24 Hours of Le Mans is the most widely known race in the world,” said Dick Winkles, SRT Viper Powertrain Engineer, who has made a pair of trips to Le Mans. “It’s important for your brand identity. If you are ‘anybody’ you race at Le Mans and if you’ve won at Le Mans you are in a very elite group. It’s one of the most important races there is, bar none.”

The 2013 rendition of the legendary event will mark the first time an SRT Viper GTS-R has taken the green flag at Le Mans in over a decade. To compete in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, a team must be invited by the Automobile Club de l’Ouest (ACO) and SRT received and gladly accepted an invitation in February.

“Le Mans is the biggest stage in the world for sports car racing,” stated Jeff Reece, Viper Vehicle Integration Engineer, who has been at Le Mans each of the five years that the Viper GTS-R competed between 1996 and 2000. “It’s the ultimate test for a race car and a driver. To have success at a place like Le Mans really validates everything that you do and work for.”

Run on one of the most grueling and challenging race courses in the world, Circuit de la Sarthe, the 24 Hours of Le Mans tests every fiber of man and machine over the course of the twice around-the-clock race. Circuit de la Sarthe measures 8.469-miles in distance, making it one of the longest race circuits in the world. The track incorporates a number of roads that are public roads and open for most of the year, outside of the time of racing events. This provides an added challenge as the public roads are not nearly as smooth and well-maintained as the parts of the course that are used solely for racing.

“The circuit has evolved over the years from what it was to what it is today,” explained Winkles. “The biggest challenge of the circuit is that it’s a dark track. On the back straightaway the lighting is almost non-existent. With the speeds you can attain back there it makes it doubly tough to get around the track in those late hours. It’s probably one of the toughest tracks in the world for that reason, if nothing else.”

At Le Mans, race cars are at full throttle for a large part of each lap, making durability and reliability of parts, especially powertrain components paramount. With long straightaways, where top speeds routinely reach 200 miles per hour, with several hard braking zones bringing the car back down to around 50 miles per hour, the braking system is one of the most vital components on the race cars.

Over the course of the 24 Hours of Le Mans, drivers will complete over 3,000 miles of racing. Put in perspective, that’s six times longer than the Indianapolis 500 or the Daytona 500 or the equivalent of driving from Boston to Los Angeles. The most laps completed in the 24 Hours of Le Mans came in 2010, when the winning team toured Circuit de la Sarthe, 397 times, which translates to 3,360 miles.

The 2013 24 Hours of Le Mans is scheduled to begin on Saturday, June 21 at 3 p.m. local time and concludes on Sunday, June 22 – 24 grueling hours later. A total of 56 entries are currently slated to the take the green flag, including the pair of SRT Viper GTS-R race cars.

“It’s huge to be going to back to Le Mans this year,” Reece said. “We built up quite a racing reputation back then and haven’t been back on that stage for a while. This is a pretty big deal, there’s no doubt about it.”

Source : SRT Motorsports