[DeTomaso] Indicator lights on race cars?

[mikeldrew at aol.com]

Charlie wrote:
I was told at Le Mans many moons ago that those lights were used to identify
the leaders in class at night. I did a quick google and couldn't find
anything to corrobarate that or give more details, but it was something like
the first place in each class had a red light, second a blue light, and
third green. I made up the colors, but the system was to allow to you tell
the order within classes at night. 
 
>>>That was probably me that told you that—when we were attending Le Mans together for the first time way back in 2001.
 
You’re confusing the race position lights, with the identification lights, which is what Chuck was asking about.
 
The lights you are talking about weren’t colored; they were numbered.  That is, each car (in the 2000s) was required to have three lights on each side.  The car in first place would have one light illuminated; second place would have two lights and third place three lights.  These lights were apparently controlled not by the driver or the team, but by the timing and scoring people.
 
Come to think of it, the different classes may have had different colored lights, but I can't remember that detail.
 
The lights Chuck is talking about are simply used to identify a specific car so the members of the team can pick it out from the crowd in the darkness.  The Gulf GT40s used big marker lights from WWII bombers grafted into the rear corners of the car, for instance.  Grady Davis’ GT40 used a pair of lights on the roof.  In 1966 there were so many GT40s running that they resorted to lurid paint schemes rather than lights to tell them apart; cars had their noses painted pink etc.
 
Earlier, Cobras had small stripes painted on the sides of the fenders, for the same reason.
 
>The Le Mans prototype cars (the really fast cars) have white headlights. The
production cars (the Ferraris, Porsches, and other comparatively slow
production cars) have yellow headlights. This helps tell what is coming up
behind you. If you are driving a slow Porsche and you see white headlights,
brace yourself because you are about to have your doors blown off. If you
are driving a prototype car and see yellow headlights, relax because you are
faster. 
 
>>>Actually, the cars that had yellow headlights were the French cars, which almost by definition meant the slow cars.  For a long time, France required cars on the road to have yellow, instead of white headlights, and as most all Le Mans race cars were street legal, for this reason the French Le Mans entrants had yellow headlights.
 
Now, everybody uses super-duper blinding HID headlights….
 
Mike