Talk:24 Hours of Le Mans

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Contents 1 Vandalism 2 Fuel 3 duplication 4 Marked for Clean-up 5 "please copyedit" 6 Winners bar graph 7 no offense, but 8 Innacurate Bar Graph 9 Videogames 10 Names for the race 11 Inaccurate track map

[edit] Vandalism

The races section and the section right below it have been vandalized. ("This section was written by tom cruise")

Wow...that was a fast fix 66.31.245.240 05:23, 9 February 2007 (UTC) Jerry

[edit] Fuel

Is there any source about the use of illegal fuel (nitromethane) by Mercedes ? - Ericd 13:19, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Radio 4 programme "In Living Memory", 27 April 2005. They made it clear it was all hotly debated, but it seemed there might be something in it. Some of the victims had only internal injuries, of the sort you'd expect in an explosion, as opposed to being hit by wreckage. Flapdragon 16:27, 27 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] duplication

The 1955 accident is described twice, once in "Accidents" and once under "History". Cut the "Accidents" section? Flapdragon 17:22, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

No. We will probably have to split the history section one day.... Ericd 19:06, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Surely the history section is aready split, into many subsections. Or is that not what you meant? It seems pointless to have two very similar (though not identical paras) giving the same info, first under "Accidents":

In 1955, Pierre Levegh was invited to drive a Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR. Racing for the lead, he hit the back of a slower Austin-Healey which had to swerve left in order to pass the Jaguar of Mike Hawthorn who suddenly moved over to the pits. The much faster Mercedes was unable to avoid the Austin-Healey, was catapulted upwards by the sloped rear end and crashed into the huge crowd opposite of the pit lane, disintegrating into parts. The driver and more than 80 spectators were killed, and many others were injured.

And then at "History":

In 1955, Pierre Levegh was allowed to drive a Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR after his excellent previous efforts. He was chasing Mike Hawthorn, when Hawthorn's Jaguar passed a slower Austin-Healey before suddenly braking to enter the pits on the right. This forced the Austin-Healey over to the left into the path of the faster Mercedes which was approaching at high speed. It ran into the back of the Austin-Healey, was catapulted into the air, and crashed into an earth bank designed to protect the crowd, disintegrating and killing the driver and 80 spectators, and injuring many others.

They even conflict slightly ("invited/allowed"; crashed into the bank or into the crowd?). If "accidents" is worth keeping as a section of its own perhaps the subheading in the history heading should just refer back to that. Flapdragon 00:46, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

When I wrote split I mean "into several articles", however I think the article hasn't matured enough today to do this. As the 1955 accident was by far the worst accindent in racing history, I think it's important to keep something outside the history section. Basically I think two events happened in Le Mans that belongs to "general history" as opposed to "Sport history", "Auto racing history" or "24 hours of Le Mans history" : the 1955 accident and Jacky Ickx demonstration. Well that's only my opinion. However this article is need of a lot improvement, the Accidents section is mainly dealing with the 1955 accident. As I wrote this I have the idea that a lot of things could be packed together in a "safety" section. You also notice some contradictions... Well all the article has to be verified for accuracy and NPOV. There's a lot of of urban myths and legend about Le Mans. I have changed my mind several times about my own contributions as I discovered new sources. Ericd 19:33, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

All that is absolutely fair comment, but I don't think any of it invalidates my point that the same paragraph shouldn't appear twice (with subtle variations) in the same article. I'll leave it to those who know something about the subject to decide where/how it should be presented and which version of the facts is correct, but it shouldn't be like this. Flapdragon 23:45, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Marked for Clean-up

This article has a a few problems that need some attention, notably:

• The previously mentioned duplication of the worst crash information,
• The large size of the article. The History section should actually be moved to the page it claims you can find it at, and a short summary made for this page. Even by itself, the History section is lengthy and written in a non-flowing bullet form and could do with some reworking.
• I split the first sentence but it might still need work - the way it was previously worded stated that it was the most famous endurance race to be held at Circuit de la Sarthe, instead of the world, which was intended.
• Not necessary, but it would also be nice to have a picture of the track layout.

210.49.61.125 14:18, 29 August 2005 (UTC)

• Regarding the third issue, attempted rewriting it for better fluidity in English. Chr.K. 07:28, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] "please copyedit"

What's with all this "please copyedit" stuff in recent edit summaries? Surely not just a request for someone else to do the spadework because the editor making changes can't be bothered?! Can I suggest it's not exactly good practice to knowingly add badly badly garbled and misspelt text and just hope all the errors get picked up. It's not asking much for people to read through and spell-check their own edits, rather than expecting someone else to do the job of sorting it all out. This article is in bad enough need of cleanup already. Flapdragon 17:30, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

I don't know what's a good practice ? As of today I am the main contributor in this article (which is too large and needing cleanup I admit, but well better something than nothing IMO). I've noted in other article a lot of well writing contributions that have a very week relationship with truth. I've try to expand this article with factualy correct contributions. I'm not a native English speaker and it requires considerable efforts from myself to write well spelled English with style. I can write French with good style and very few spelling errors but I've definetly made the choice to contribute in the English-speaking Wikipedia, because I think it's more universal. What's the sense of collaborative work if the strength of one can not correct the weakness of the other ? If you think it's disrepectful exepecting others to do the job I know I can't do well, I think I'd better go elsewhere.... Ericd 19:17, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

It's great that you have contributed so much to the article but it would be even better if you would spend just a little of that time checking what you have written before submitting it. That's what the preview button is for, not to mention spellcheckers and dictionaries. I'm not talking about subtle shades of English style and idiom, or the odd rare grammatical slip-up, but obvious mistakes in almost every line: "The mainweaknesse of the 1972 670 ... was taht...", "The race went on at planned", "a serious differential problems", "[he] choose the lowest optionmuch tio the surprise of Porsche management" and so on -- these are just fautes de frappe and fautes d'inattention which could easily be avoided. When it starts to make the text incomprehensible (I for one don't understand "On Shelby's iniative T the GT-40's were fitted with engine as the Cobras") then it's not helping the article, and at the moment the quality of this one seems to be going down not up. If the idea that "it's better than nothing" leads to a substandard, incomprehensible article then that is doing Wikipedia a disservice. In the age of spell-checkers and online dictionaries it really doesn't take "considerable efforts" to avoid basic spelling and grammatical errors. Why not use a word-processor to create the text you plan to add and get it ready before you upload it? -- that makes the History much more "cleaner". Would you be keen to spend your editing time correcting the slips of other people, when you could be doing something interesting instead? Incidentally, if you don't feel your English is good enough (and I'm sure that's not true) what would be so wrong with contributing the facts to the French Wikipedia, from where they could be translated to add to the English one? That kind of collaborative effort might be just as fruitful as expecting others to clean up basic slips. Wikipédia has 176k articles, hardly a lost cause unworthy of anyone's time. That way both wikis would get the benefit of your knowledge, without creating tedious spadework for other people. Best wishes, Flapdragon 20:10, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Why not use a word-processor to create the text you plan to add and get it ready before you upload it ? Simply because it's not my kind of work especially on that kind of subject I process by rough notes about what I believe importatnt and then try to turn that mess into something that has some coherence. Have you ever spent two weeks writing a two page article just to notice that your work was already done by another contributor ? A very frustrating experience. Ericd 21:01, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not meant to be an editing tool. Apart from anything else, by making continual tiny changes in "stream of consciousness" mode, you end up hogging the article when someone else is trying to edit, and their edits, unconnected with what you were in the middle of doing, will be interspersed with yours, making it much harder to follow the progress of what's happened, revert vandalism or whatever. Just take a look at what a mess it makes of the History pages if you continually save without even looking at what you've written. Of course no-one would spend two weeks writing text without even checking that someone else isn't doing the same work, that's ridiculous, but there's nothing at all to stop you spending two minutes writing at least a single coherent paragraph and checking it for errors before uploading it. That's the place for turning your rough notes into serviceable text. Anyway, however often you save, there's still nothing to stop someone else making the change you were going to make, or one that contradicts it, at any moment. That's just the way it goes. Flapdragon 22:42, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Winners bar graph

The graph illustrating the number of wins per team is interesting but its also misleading in the sense that one might construe that all teams have entered all races. If a parallel set of bars could be added to the graph denoting the number of races entered per team that would put it in perspective. I.e. Mercedes have had relatively few wins but of course they dropped out for quite a while.--Hooperbloob 08:24, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] no offense, but

while it's odd enough that you consider miles' having actually won two races and finishing first in the third (but not winning only because he was ordered to back off) to be "speculation" regarding his winning all three if he had not backed off, it's your belief that the previous version was in English that I find really stunning. (^_^)Gzuckier 17:26, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Innacurate Bar Graph

Ive removed the bargraph of winners that was on the page because it was innacuratly stating the number of wins by some manafacturers, and ommissing some manafacturers completly. The Image can still be found at http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/99/Le_Mans.gif if reasons are found to justify its inclusion LuNatic 06:44, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Videogames

I would suggest that this section be split out into a seperate article and then refer to it here via a "Main article" or "See also" link. I'm not sure of the proper naming convention for the new article, so I based it on this article, but maybe the video gamers use a different convention? --Brian G 13:51, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

I've split the section into its own article. JustinH 14:05, 28 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Names for the race

I'm wondering if "Grand Prix of Endurance" should be used in the intro, at least as an alternative extension or historical synonym, as it is in the individual race pages (eg 1923 24 Hours of Le Mans). I've seen this phrase referred to elsewhere as a former name, but have yet to identify any distinct date of cessation. FWIW, I did run across a listing for a poster for the 1924 race [1] that bills it as "[Sur le circuit permanent de la Sarthe, le] 2ème Grand Prix d'Endurance de 24 Heures" (with no use of "Le Mans"), which I suppose could translate as "[on the permanent circuit of Sarthe, the] 2nd Grand Prix of 24 Hour Endurance", but I don't know if that sort of thing borders on original research. At the very least, there should be consistency between the nomenclature of 24 Hours of Le Mans and the subordinate articles on individual races. ENeville 16:59, 23 September 2006 (UTC)
P.S. Belatedly, I see that the French page has a copy of a poster for the first race. ENeville 17:07, 23 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Inaccurate track map

The track map doesn't include the most recent changes between the Dunlop chicane and the Tertre Rouge esses. There's a map at the old Motor Racing Circuits database (which now resides on a new server since the old owners abandoned the original site):

[2]

Would have to be modified (shrunk and turned 90 degrees) to fit on the current page tho. John DiFool2 16:05, 27 March 2007 (UTC)