Consistent Excellence, Passionately Unbridled

[Rob]

by Peter M. DeLorenzo

Detroit. With contemporary society seemingly devolving into a angry sea of entitlement and blissful, soporific mediocrity - consistent excellence is hard to find in this lowest-common-denominator world in which we now live. Consistent excellence simply requires too much for most people. It demands a relentless focus, while at the same time abhorring excuses. It requires a commitment of time and a level of energy that are daunting and all-consuming. It means having a dedication that's unwavering and unrelenting - all fueled by a fiery passion that refuses to recognize any definition of the word "quit." Consistent excellence too often is an elusive goal in this day and age, and that's a tragedy. But I'm happy to report that there's at least one last bastion of it, and it's alive and well in the Motor City.

GM's Corvette Racing won the GT1 class at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the most prestigious sports car race in the world, for the third straight year last Sunday, after withstanding a withering onslaught from the factory Aston Martin racing team. The Corvette Racing No. 64 C6.R driven by Olivier Beretta, Oliver Gavin and Jan Magnussen battled with the No. 009 Aston Martin DBR9 of Pedro Lamy, Stephane Sarrazin and Stephane Ortelli throughout the race, with the DBR9 leading most of the way. But with just under three hours to go in the race (just past 2 p.m. local time), the 009 car was pulled into the garage with clutch problems, handing the lead and the win to the Corvette, which finished an incredible fourth overall. "It was a great race today," Gavin said. "We were pushing Aston Martin for those first 20-21 hours. Part of the strength of the Corvette and the Corvette Racing program is that it keeps going. It looked like the Aston Martins were going to be indestructible." It was not to be for the Aston Martins, beautifully prepared by the vaunted Prodrive team, however, as they suffered bitter disappointment for the third straight year after giving the Corvette team all they could handle - and then some.

Full Story: http://www.autoextremist.com/page2.shtml#Rant

 

[Mac]

Great article.

I just sent an email to my neighbour who bought a DB9 this spring, bragging about the Corvette win. I expect she's heat me up about it later... :L

-Mac

 

[Dad]

Entitlement, is that the SS that people worked 45 years for or is it the multi million dollars salaries and bonuses that are handed out to the top executives? Maybe it's just the blathering of a mediocre reporter that hopes to hit it big by insulting those that work so hard to give him the platform to shoot his mouth off. It's a thrill to watch the C6s run but the first part of this article takes away from those that spend the unseen hours to support this kind of effort just to have someone jump in there and hand out credit while kicking those that actually helped make it possible.

What can you expect to get from a reporter, or self aclaimed automotive consultant, that was handed everthing to make his ability to belittle available to him. I can't imagine ever reading his site again.

For anyone to take a potshot at those that built the automotive industry and their rewards, meager as they are, to belittle NASCAR without taking the same critical look at the politics of the Le Mans is very simple minded.

Thanks for the article, you reminded me that there are some real jerks in all of the disciplines in the U.S.A.

 

[Erik S. Klein]

For anyone to take a potshot at those that built the automotive industry and their rewards, meager as they are, to belittle NASCAR without taking the same critical look at the politics of the Le Mans is very simple minded.

You clearly have better between-the-lines reading skills than I do. Either that or we read two different articles.