Very good Documentary

All in all a great documentary on an underappreciated film.

'LeMans' is the most accurate depiction of motor racing in a feature film.

It took place in a fantastic year, when the World Sports Car Championship was contested by 5 liter sports cars. these were not prototypes, these were homologated sports cars. To be eligible, there had to be a minimum of 25 cars, they had to have 'luggage room' for a suitcase, carry a spare tire, have turn signals, a horn and a second seat. The battle between the Porsche 917 and the Ferrari 512s was epic, though the results were a bit lop-sided. At the age of 12, this was fantastic and the blue and orange John Wyer Automotive 'Gulf ' Porsches were my favorite. There were other teams running the 917, most notably the Porsche Salzburg team from Austria, whose red with white sunburst stripes car of Hans Hermann and Dick Atwood actually won the race in 1970.

This is a very good documentary. More detailed look can be found in the book "A French Kiss with Death: the Story of Steve McQueen and LeMans" by Michael Keyser.

One bit of the story they left out was that they went to LeMans in 1969 to scout out the locations for the 1970 race and develop the shooting schedule. They practices shooting much of the 1969 race to know what to do in 1970. This is where the 1969 race footage came from. They showed the fatal Porsche 917 crash that claimed the life of John Woolf as he was ending the first lap of that race.

One thing I took issue with was a prominently placed assertion that the asbestos caused cancer may have come from the flame proof driving suits. If that were the case, we would have likely seen this as a trend with drivers from that era. This was a sensational and reckless comment which ignored the fact that McQueen was in the Merchant Marine prior to acting and that the ships boilers and piping were wrapped in asbestos. This was the likely source of his issue as there are a number of former sailors and shipyard workers who had suffered from asbestosis.