Mercedes C9. As his turn in the car was due to end at roughly 4:50 AM, the sky would still be dark for about another hour, which would really hinder track drying. The only thing helping out would be the heat the cars were generating. Still, it would be a slow process. "Where am I running, position-wise?" Balto radioed to the pits. "You're in P5, Balto," Kurt responded. By P5, he meant position 5, meaning fifth place overall and in class. "How am I faring in terms of lap times?" Balto asked again. "Marginally quicker than the leaders," Kurt replied. "You're still not gaining much. Hans has done most of the gaining for us in recovering." Sure enough, darkness lasted until after Balto had finished his next stint. He was still considerably discouraged to be so far back after the headlight snafu that occurred around midnight during his third run in the car at around 4:50 AM. When he handed off the car to Bob, the #9 Porsche was up to fourth overall and in C1. His next run was due to start around 7:50 AM.   Chapter 15: Push To The Finish   The next several hours were rather uneventful for Balto Wolf, Hans-Joachim Stuck and Bob Wollek. They had managed to keep their car out of trouble for the most part after the drama of the nighttime hours. By 9:00 AM, the #9 Joest Racing Porsche 962C was up to third overall. The other remaining Joest entry, car #8, was hanging on in the top 10 as well, albeit farther back. If either one of them was gonna mount a charge for the lead, time was starting to run out. And car #9 was their best hope. It would take them staying out of trouble and the cars ahead of them having trouble as well for them to get back in the hunt. But with 7 hours to go, there was still plenty of time left. But less and less of it remained with every lap that passed. All they could do was soldier on. The class that had the heaviest toll taken on it was the C2 class. Less than ten of that category's starters were still in the race. This isn't much of a surprise, as C2 cars have generally been unreliable at endurance races, which may have had something to do with the shortening of races on the World Sportscar Championship schedule from 1000 km to just 480 km. The fuel consumption rules still applied, however. Balto handed the car off to Bob at around 9:20 AM. About 45 minutes later, they had another setback when the starter motor had failed during a routine pit stop. The starter motor would have to be replaced. And it was in just 10 minutes. But in doing so, Bob, Hans, and Balto lost 3 laps on the leaders and were now 10 laps down. Their hopes of mounting a comeback appeared to be slipping away. However, they didn't lose any positions in the process, as the next-placed car was too far back to have made up the deficit it had on them in the time it took to change the starter motor. But things weren't all bad for the team from Mannheim. The leading C9 also had a starter motor fail and lost as many laps in the pits, putting the gap right back to where it was. The time lost in the pits bumped the estimated time of the next scheduled pit stop to roughly 11:00 AM, when Hans was next scheduled to take the wheel. Balto would get back in the car at 12:30 PM and stay in the car until 2:00 PM. By now, Balto was clearly feeling the full effect of the fatigue from the race. Almost immediately after climbing out of the car and debriefing with Kurt, Balto immediately went to find a place to nap. He had tried to sleep during between stints during the night, but with all the problems he had during the nighttime hours, he was on edge, all strung up. And it showed during his latest stints. He seemed very exhausted. Balto wasn't alone, however. His own co-drivers, Bob and Hans, were also worn out from more than 18 hours of racing at speeds exceeding 240 mph. The engineers, however, feel the effects of fatigue to an even greater degree than the drivers or the mechanics. They're the ones with the responsibility of keeping track of everything going on with the car all the time. And when in their position, there's practically very little to no time for sleep. Kurt was a very obvious example. He'd been a nervous wreck since Balto had the #9 car's headlights short circuit on him in the middle of the night. He hadn't slept at all since. After looking around, Balto eventually sat down in a lawn chair that wasn't being used at the time and went to sleep for a while. Jenna took notice and put a blanket over Balto to help keep him warm. Although he didn't exactly need it, Balto did appreciate Jenna's gesture, showing it with a cheery, yet tired, smile. Jenna pulled up another lawn chair and sat down next to him. "You gonna be okay to drive later, baby?" Jenna asked. "I think so," Balto replied. Hans was sitting next to them catching a brief break of his own. He didn't stick around much longer, as he had to get ready for his next stint. Sure enough, at exactly 11:00 AM on the dot, Bob brought the #9 Joest Porsche 962C into the pits and handed the car off to Hans. Like Bob's most recent stint, Hans's turn in the car was largely uneventful. However, he did have a close call with the #10 962C from Kremer Racing, which locked its brakes under braking for the Mulsanne Corner and flew across the track in front of Hans. Through great evasive action, Hans avoided getting it and possibly being taken out of the race. Balto had a similar close call during his latest stint when the #25 Nissan R89C, driven by IMSA GTP rivals Geoff Brabham and Chip Robinson, along with Arie Luyendyk, after passing him at the entrance to the Porsche Curves, had a high speed suspension failure that threw the car into the barrier, and in doing so, almost collected him. That incident almost scared Balto witless. "Nissan off! Nissan off in front of me!" he remembered hollering into the mike. The incidnet also reminded him of seeing John Morton do that blowover at Lime Rock Park last year. "Which car was that?" Balto asked. "I couldn't tell!" "The #25 Nissan," Reinhold answered back. "The one being driven by your IMSA buddies Geoff and Chip." The "buddies" part was meant a bit sarcastically, as Reinhold Joest knew what happened between Balto, Chip, and Geoff recently at Lime Rock. Also out of the race at this point was the #2 Jaguar, driven by John Nielsen, Andy Wallace, and Price Cobb (all of whom Balto knew from GTP), meaning that TWR was now down to two XJR-9LMs. And neither of them were in a position to win at the moment without help from attrition. Right now, as the race wound down, the focus became more about finishing the race, making sure the car came home in one piece. Sure enough, during their remaining stints in the car, Bob, Hans, and Balto were ordered to make sure that they brought their car to the finish. Bob finished off the remaining two hours of the race, bringing the car home in third place in C1 and overall. It wasn't what they hoped for, especially after how well they ran earlier in the race. But for Balto, who returned to Le Mans for the first time since his near-fatal accident one year ago, who put up a performance that raised several eyebrows up and down pit road, and who never gave up despite being largely out of the hunt for the latter two-thirds of the race, it felt like a win. In his first full appearance in the greatest endurance race on the planet, which is also one of the three biggest races in the world (along with the Indy 500 and F1 Monaco Grand Prix), he had proven his worth. And that, to him, was a victory in its own right. The podium finishers for each class were as follows:   C1 #63 Sauber C9 - Jochen Mass, Manuel Reuter, Stanley Dickens; 398 laps #61 Sauber C9 - Mauro Baldi, Kenny Acheson, Gianfranco Brancatelli; 384 laps #9 Porsche 962C - Balto Wolf, Hans-Joachim Stuck, Bob Wollek; 382 laps   GTP #201 Mazda 767B - Dave Kennedy, Pierre Dieudonne, Chris Hodgetts; 368 laps #202 Mazda 767B - Takashi Yorino, Herve Regout, Elliot Forbes-Robinson; 365 laps #203 Mazda 767B - Yojiro Terada, Marc Duez, Volker Wielder; 339 laps   C2 #113 Cougar C20B - Jean-Claude Andruet, Phillipe Farjon, Shunju Kasuya; 312 laps #171 Spice SE88C - Robbie Stirling, Ross Hyett, Don Shead; 307 laps #108 Spice SE87C - Dudley Wood, Evant Clemens, Phillipe de Henning; 303 laps   The best placed Jaguar finished fourth overall, while the third of the three Sauber C9s came home in fifth place, and the other remaining Joest Porsche, the #8 car with the all French driver lineup, would finish in sixth position. A huge crowd started to form on the main straight and the pit area under the winner's rostrum. This is a moment every sports car racing fan dreams of: to be on the track before the start and/or after the finish. For the drivers, mechanics, engineers, and other team personnel, it is the moment they can at long last catch their breath. For the winners, it's a chance to enjoy their reward for all their hard work, knowing that they have joined an elite, illustrious group of athletes. For the rest, a look at what might have been. That may have been the case for Balto and his seatmates, Bob and Hans, but in a 24-hour endurance race like Le Mans, a podium finish is never an easy accomplishment. For Balto himself, it was quite an honor to share the car with two of sports car racing's best. And to do as well as he did during the run-up to the race and the race itself felt really good for him. "You did a good job out there, kid," Reinhold Joest told his driver. "Thanks, Reinhold," Balto replied. Kurt also had to praise the driver he engineered for during race week. "You did better than I expected, Balto," Kurt said. "Really, I did?" Balto asked quizzically. "You sure did," Kurt responded. Seeing how happy Balto was with his performance as well as

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