Editor: What do you think about this weekend’s race, taking your experience into account, what kind of a race are we in for? What’s your take on the field this year?
SM: When you’re dominant, you’re not racing anyone else, you’re racing the track, and that’s what’s happening with Toyota this year. Every so often in racing it happens that one team is really dominant and nobody can touch them, and this year, that’s Toyota. Back in 1994, we were really dominant and in a similar position. We’d won the 24 Hours of Daytona by 20 laps, and then followed that up with winning Sebring by 7 laps. We were ahead of the field, and that’s where Toyota is going into the 24. Toyota isn’t really facing any competition that can match its speed – so they won’t be racing the competition, but rather, Toyota is racing against LeMans, the track itself.

Editor: That’s very true, in an endurance race, just finishing the race is an accomplishment. As the saying goes, ‘To finish First, first, you must finish.”, right?
SM: Right. I’ve always said of endurance races, “The Car Is the Star”, with more than one person driving, it isn’t about the driver anymore, it comes down to how good the car is. In some ways, it’s more challenging- you’re racing yourself. Toyota will be pushing the car to its limits here, and so dominant as they’ve been, it’s their race to lose.

Editor: As you said, Nissan’s decision to go to LeMans in 1994 was a bit last minute, do you feel like that presented the Nissan team with any challenges other teams might not have faced? Would you have changed anything on the car if you’d had more time?
SM: Certainly – if we’d had more time, we’d have done a different aero treatment for the bodywork. The car was set up for racing in the USA, on road courses where you need a lot of downforce. That meant we had more drag than some of the other teams, but we still didn’t have a problem hitting 200 at 4 different places on the track… in a car setup for grip.
Editor: The rules were also slightly different than you were expecting, too, weren’t they?
SM: When we arrived in France, were expecting to race under American LeMans rules, and when we arrived, we found we’d be racing under the French LeMans rules, and the GTP class was added and ran at the same time – that added more traffic to maneuver around, and more people to drop oil on the track, go off, all that.

Editor: LeMans is certainly one of those “lifetime experience” type events, what do you most clearly remember of racing there?

Editor: Having run an endurance race myself, ironically in the parodious 24 hours of LeMons, it was hard to stay ‘on my a-game’ after an hour in the car, how often did you switch out? Was getting tired an issue?

 

Editor: As frustrating as that must’ve been at the time, you did find another suit in time… it’s one of those things you laugh at looking back, isn’t it?