repair took twenty minutes, dropping them to fifth. Then in the early morning a rear wheel-bearing broke and they finally got back in the race 20 laps down. By half distance at least 20 cars had retired and a number more were 'walking wounded'. All three works Rondeaux were out. Lapeyre had parked the third-placed car at Arnage with a distributor shaken apart by the DFL. The WMs were also gone, Pignard/Raulet/Theys had a broken gearbox after a faulty alternator, while Dorchy/Fréquelin/Couderc had another crash which resulted in a fire wrecking the car. At the halfway mark, Ickx/Bell (180) were a lap ahead of the Mass/Schuppan car with the Joest car three laps further back (176). The privateer Nimrod was running steadily in fourth (171) and the recovering works Porsche (169) just ahead of the Fitzpatrick 935 leading the GTX class. They were pursued by the NART Ferrari (168), the British 935 leading Group 5 (167) and the Cooke Racing 935K3 in ninth (164). The GTs were led by the Mazdas, with Walkinshaw in 12th (jumping five places in the 12th hour), and Terada in 16th, with Richard Cleare's 934 in 17th. Of the 55 starters only 31 were left running. Morning As dawn broke the two Porsches were well established at the front, cruising up to 30 seconds off their pace in practice. Wollek stayed in contact in third, while the Ferrari had moved up to fourth. The Nimrod had lost time when the cold dawn air had cracked a front brake under heavy deceleration for the Mulsanne corner. Fitzpatrick's 935 had just taken over fourth at 6.15am, when it spluttered into the pits with a blown head gasket. Instead of repairing the engine, the crew disconnected the offending cylinder and sent them back out on five, running at least 15 seconds a lap off pace. Meanwhile, the other leading GTs were having problems. Steve O'Rourke's GTX BMW, (that had been running very well in 12th all through the night) was having more and more severe clutch issues; the 934 lost time when two driveshafts broke within two laps of each other; the leading Mazda's run ended when Peter Lovett stopped on the back straight with a blown engine. Then bigger drama at 10.40am when the leading Porsche suffered a puncture, and had to crawl 6 kilometres slowly back to the pits to save the suspension. A five-lap lead