By Christopher Tracy
The biggest race of the summer calendar has lost a little luster the last couple of years without a true factory competitor for the Toyota Gazoo Racing team. While that’s true, it is still one of the most iconic races on the calendar.
Andy Blackmore Design has released his spotters’ guide for this year’s race. They released a high-resolution version and a reduced version also.
On the second page, there is a grayed out entry. It is the second Dempsey-Proton Racing entry that had a crash in free practice earlier this week. The crash happened on the Mulsanne Straight and was initially reported to be caused by a faster LMP2 car driving into the back of the Porsche. It was actually a one-car accident with Tracy Krohn losing control of the car. Tracy is the team principal of Krohn Racing who was running the car in cooperation with Dempsey-Proton Racing.
The #99 has withdrawn from the race after the accident that destroyed the GTE-Am class car. The FIA has a rule that requires Krohn to sit out from racing for one week following a heavy accident. The team had started to prep a backup car, but with Krohn having to sit out, the team has withdrawn. Seems like the perfect situation for Bill Caswell to show up in France, build, race, and party per usual.
Krohn’s co-drivers, Patrick Long and Nic Jonsson, are not allowed to continue without Krohn because of the driver rating system and every team needing a Bronze-rated driver in the car during the race. Krohn was the Bronze driver for this team.
The 24 Hours of Le Mans will start with one less racecar on Saturday 3 PM local time in France.
Jeff Glucker 
Kamil Kaluski
Wow this has snuck up on me, thanks Chris. A shame for the 99 crew to miss the race. I wonder what they will do now, go home and have a weekend off or stay and drink?
Even missing #99 it is a record 61-car field this year.
I’m following the race on http://www.radiolemans.co/#
And every hour, on the 1/2 hour is an update …introduced by the Cult’s “She Sells Sanctuary”.
…So worth listening to RLM just for the incidental music.
The Cult has been ingrained in RLM 13+ years.
At least as long as I’ve been listening.