time they managed to set. Worse yet, their run in that practice session was cut short after Bob Wollek hit an oil slick (dropped by a blown engine) in the braking zone for Indianapolis Corner and spun into the gravel trap. Fortunately, the car came to rest without hitting anything and was eventually pulled out by a small tractor.   Chapter 11: May the fastest car win the pole!   The battle for grid supremacy, aka qualifying, began Thursday evening. Since the full Le Mans circuit is made up of miles of public roads, most sessions are held during the evening after the day's traffic has thinned down making it an ideal time to close down the public road sections. Qualifying was no different, as it would start at 7:00 pm and last until midnight with a one hour break at 9:00 pm to establish updates of lap times and clear the track of any debris. Often times, many teams and drivers will wait until late in the session to set a fast time. By this point, the air and track will have cooled off as the sun sets. The lower temperatures will enable the effective use of grippier, soft compound tires, which heat up to working temperature quickly even in cool conditions. Such a strategy can backfire, however, as track temperatures can suddenly plummet, causing a serious loss of tire adhesion. Or, as in Bob's case from second practice, an engine might blow, oiling the track and ruling out fast laps for the rest of the evening. Most teams wait until the last minute to set a quick lap regardless. It's their last chance to do so. Balto didn't want to wait this time in case either above mentioned scenario did happen. But those weren't the only reasons why he didn't wait. He had gone out late in qualifying last year when he had his accident. The piece of debris was hard to see even in the headlights. He figured by making his run earlier, he would have one less thing to worry about. Although it was still fairly hot, Balto still managed to lay down an impressive lap 3:19.642. Usually in qualifying, the fuel load should be as light as possible in order to keep the car as light as possible. Fuel is quite heavy, and when put into the tank, it adds weight that impedes speed and handling. But with the full Circuit de la Sarthe measuring nearly 8.5 miles long, if too little fuel was put in, a driver could run the risk of running out of fuel, which is quite serious when the pits can be as much as 8.5 miles away. On the other hand, put too much fuel in the car and performance will suffer due to the excess weight. Despite his best effort, which was initially the fastest time overall, Balto's pole lap was quickly struck from the top by the three Mercedes C9s. Coming into Le Mans, the C9s were the cars to beat. Balto was well aware that beating his former Le Mans team was going to be a daunting task. They had dominated the first round of the FIA World Sportscar Championship. But he was still determined to give it all he had and by the end of the first half of qualifying, he had set the fourth fastest time of the session. At 10:00 pm, the second half of qualifying began, this time in near total darkness. For both qualifying sessions, Reinhold Joest insisted on having all of his drivers getting at least one lap in during both sessions so that they could get a feel for the car and the track during both the daytime and the nighttime. The strategy seemed to work quite well for them. Balto definitely made the best of the cooler conditions of night and bettered his time from the first half of qualifying by over three and a half seconds. His time of 3:15.697, while fastest among his seatmates, was still only good enough for fourth fastest, as once again the Mercedes C9s swept the top three spots, with the #62 C9 taking pole with a time of 3:15.040. Still, he wasn't phased at all. Of course, he knew in a straight fight, Team Sauber couldn't just lose. But with Le Mans being Le Mans, there was no guarantee that one of the three silver C9s was going to come out on top. At Le Mans, anything can happen, and often does. The other two Joest Racing Prosche 962Cs also qualified in the top 10, although they were considerably further down the starting grid. Car #7 qualified in seventh place, while Car #8 timed in ninth fastest. Overall, Balto was pleased with times. Reality, however, was that all he good during the early stages of the race was battle for fourth fastest and hope that the cars ahead of him had trouble. Friday evening would see qualifying for the C2 cars, the smaller, lighter and less powerful prototypes. These were largely privateer teams with little or no factory backing. Smaller displacement engines compared with their C1 counterparts were the norm for this category. Original Group C rules dictated that engines had to be from a manufacturer with cars homologated in Group B for GT cars or Group A for touring cars. Typically, C1 engines came out of Group B while C2 engines came from Group A. The 3.2 liter flat-6 of the Porsche 962C had been battle-tested in the 936 from the old Group 6 category and had also been used in the 956. The latter was also intended to be used in IMSA GTP competition, but was banned on safety grounds because the driver's feet were positioned ahead of the front axle centerline. The remedy: the 962. Porsche's two Group C prototypes competed simultaneously throughout 1984 and much of 1985. But after Stefan Bellof's fatal crash during that year's running of the Spa 1000km race at Belgium's Spa-Francorchamps circuit at the wheel of a 956, the 962 became Prosche's sole Group C/GTP car in use. What happened there was as follows: Entering Spa's challenging, climbing Eau Rouge corner (a turn widely regarded as the most challenging corner on any circuit in the world), Bellof's privateer 956 made contact with fellow Belgian Jacky Ickx's works 962C, both cars spun and hit the embankment, which was almost right at the edge of the track. Bellof's 956 caught fire after impact, and the whole scene was captured by the in-car camera in Ickx's 962C. The race was red-flagged and brought to a halt. About an hour of so later, Stefan Bellof was pronounced dead. That particluar race was abandoned immediately, never to resume. But the 1000km of Spa would be back on the calendar for the FIA (Federation International de l' Automobile) World Sportscar Championship next year. By 1989, however, Group B and Group A had almost gone extinct, as there would be virtually no cars from either of those two categories competing at Le Mans this year. This year's race was all-prototypes, much like some of Balto's IMSA races, which were either prototype-only or had separate races for both prototypes and GTs. The most recent year for Group B cars appearing at Le Mans was 1986. 1987 and 1988 were all-prototype races, no different from this year. Meanwhile, Jenna really appeared to be enjoying her first trip to Le Mans. Before going, she didn't really know much about the race, and therefore never understood why everyone in sports car racing made such a big deal about it. Sure, Balto had told her about how important the race was, but it just never clicked with Jenna until she actually began experiencing it for herself. "Wow," she thought to herself on numerous occasions throughout the week leading up to the race. Friday night, after the ceremonial drivers' parade through town, Jenna eventually came out and told him so. They were in the team motorhome at the time. "You know, Balto," Jenna said, "I think I finally understand why you've been taking this race so seriously." "What do you mean?" Balto asked. "You know how I didn't fully understand what a big deal this race was?" Jenna replied in the form of a question. "I think I finally know why that is. I don't why, but I just never believed it until now." Those words left Balto with the impression that Jenna had an "I'll believe it when I see it" attitude toward what Balto had to say about the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Then again, some things have to be seen to be believed, as words alone can't do any justice to them. "Look, Jenna," Balto put in. "I'm sorry if you thought I was shutting you out because of this. I wasn't doing it deliberately." "No, no, part of it's my fault, too," Jenna added, almost cutting Balto off in mid-sentence. "I never really understood or knew how much this race meant to you." "Baby, it's okay," said Balto as he put his left paw on Jenna's right shoulder. "If you didn't know, you didn't know. None of us are to blame for this. I'm sure the whole thing was nothing more than a major misunderstanding." "I'm sure it was, too," Jenna finished. She then looked up at him, as if begging for a kiss. Which she got. "You know what?" Jenna asked. "What?" Balto asked back. "I'm actually starting to like this place," Jenna replied. "Le Mans really is a great city. Even here at the track, there's so much to see and do." "There sure is," Balto agreed. "Oh, Balto," said Jenna as she held him tightly. "I'm so glad I decided to come here." "Me too, Jenna," said Balto as he held her, too. "It wouldn't be the same if you weren't here." Still holding each other, they leaned in and kissed again. Just seconds later, however, Hans-Joachim Stuck, one of Balto's seatmates for the race, happened to walk into the trailer and saw them in the act. "Whoops!" he said as he tried to shield his eyes. Balto and Jenna pulled their lips away from each other and looked in the direction of the voice. "Sorry!" said Hans as he held his hands up somewhat in protest and rotated them outward from his line of sight. "You two taking the green flag or the checkered flag?" he then asked. Balto laughed at his seatmate's remark. "Always with the

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