The Le Mans 24-Hour race is said to be the greatest motor race in the world and after the running of the 67th event on June 12/13, which contained more thrills, spills and overtaking than you see in a whole season of Formula One -- it can easily lay claim to that title.

Upholding local honours was Brentwood racing driver Perry McCarthy, driving the for the German car manufacturer Audi, making their debut at the last Le Mans of the millennium.

Four cars were entered -- two Audi R8C coupes from the British-based Audi Sport UK, based in Buckingham, and two Audi R8R roadsters from the German-based Audi Sport Team Joest.

Perry was driving one of the R8C coupe's with fellow Brits Andy Wallace and Harlow's James Weaver, just three of 14 British driver taking part in Le Mans and with an estimated 70,000 British motorsport fans attending, their was always plenty of support for them.

The Audi R8C coupe was only conceived six months ago at Audi's subsidiary RTN, in Hingham, Norfolk, and shares the same 3.6 litre V8 twin-turbo engine, transmission and rear suspension and brakes of the German-built Audi R8R roadster which has been undergoing intensive testing since last summer.

The Audi Sport UK team is led by team principal Richard Lloyd who has raced five times at Le Mans and came second in 1985 with Jonathan Palmer and James Weaver.

Team director John Wickham has the awesome task of being in control of the 80-strong quad of personnel within the British team which includes 20 mechanics looking after the two cars.

With qualifying sessions on Wednesday and Thursday evening for grid positions for the 48 cars allowed to race, which had already been whittled down from an original entry of 64 at pre-qualifying sessions that had taken place in early May, Perry's Audi lined up in 20th place but was hampered by problems in both sessions with gear shift and differential failure respectively during both sessions.

The gearbox would prove to be the Achilles heel of both the British run Audis and soon reared its head when Andy Wallace had to to pit within twenty minutes of the start of 24-hour race at 4pm on Saturday afternoon when he lost second gear necessitating a gearbox change.

Perry's first driving stint started at 8.00pm until 9.30pm in which time the car ran faultlessly with Perry pitting twice for fuel. Don't think that once the race starts that the car pound around for lap after lap.

With all cars limited to a 90 litre fuel tank and a track length of 8 miles cars have to pit every 12 laps which provides plenty of pit activity to keep the crowd and the pit crew on its toes.

With a further driving session at the unearthly hour of 1.30am Perry took over from team mate James Weaver until 4.00 am when he handed over to Andy Wallace.

With the Audi R8C running well it climbed to its highest position of 22nd and Perry started his third stint at 7am and during this period he took the accolade of setting the fastest lap time by over one second of both his team mates Wallace and Weaver.

At 8.20am after 16-hours of racing the Achilles heel gearbox jammed in gear as Perry powered out of the second chicane on the 5-mile long Mulsanne straight.

As Perry recalls: ''As I came through the second chicane it stuck in gear, so I pulled off. After removing the rear engine cover I tried to manually operate the gear linkage without success. There was no more I could do.''

With the other British Audi R8C driven by Stefan Johansson, Stephane Ortelli and Christian Abt having retired after four hours, the mantle for laurels fell to the German Joest team, whose two Audi R8R roadsters driven by Emanuele Pirro, Frank Biela, Didier Theys, Michele Alboreto, Rinaldo Capello and Laurent Aiello steadily climbed the leader board to finish the Le Mans 24-hour race in a superb third and fourth place only five laps behind the winning BMW V12 LMR.

After the race Perry said: ''Audi Sport UK faced an uphill struggle with the car being so new but I was impressed with the whole teams' determination to battle on despite whatever problems were thrown at them.

''I am disappointed that we did not finish the race but at least we lasted longer than some of the pre-race favourites.

''On a positive note I am delighted the German Joest Audi R8R's finished in third and fourth place as I have been involved as a driver with the cars development.

''For a debut performance in a tough race like Le Mans 24-hour race, it is an incredibly impressive result.''

Perry McCarthy with the No10 Audi 8RC coupe before the start of the Le Mans 24-Hour race.

(Right) The sleek-looking Audi 8RC on track.

Pictures: GRAHAM LIDDELL The winner of the 1999 Le Mans 24-Hour race was the works entered BMW V12 LMR driven by Joe Winkelhock, Pierluigi Martini and Yannick Dalmas -- but it was so close with only a one lap advantage.

With four hours of the race to go the BMW's were in first and second place with the remaining Toyota GT One in third place, the other two Toyota's of Martin Brundle and Allan McNish -- which started as pre-race favourites -- having retired hours earlier.

The lead BMW retired and ex Formula One driver Ukyo Katayama piled on the pressure in the Toyota, recording the fastest lap time of the whole race to close the gap down to around 20 seconds before suffering a rear puncture and limping back to the pits handing the advantage back to BMW which they were not to loose.

Although a BMW engine powered the McLaren to a win in 1995, this victory was the marque's first in its own right.

The last podium place went to the Audi R8R roadster, with the sister car in fourth.

Both the thundering Panoz-Ford LMP Spyders finished the race this year, doing the last lap side by side in seventh and eleventh place.

Mercedes had another disastrous Le Mans. After all cars retired last year within the hour, this year the three-pointed star entered three cars. During qualifying session on Wednesday and Thursday night the Mercedes CLR driven by Aussie Mark Webber flipped over on run down to Indianapolis corner.

The AMG Mercedes team decided to continue for the race on Saturday adding more downforce to the front of the car but after four hours the identical accident happened on the same section of track, this time launching Scottish driver Peter Dumbreck high into the air clearing the armco barrier and a triple somersault before landing in an outfield area that was cleared of trees only two weeks earlier.

Thankfully the driver escaped unhurt and Mercedes immediately withdrew the remaining car for obvious reasons.

In the GTS category the dominant Chrysler Viper took the first six places. The factory entry of Beretta/Wendlinger/Dupuy came first in class and tenth overall with the Archer/Bell/Duez second. The Porsche 996 GT3 of Alzen/Huisman/Riccitelli took the GT class win.

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.