fire with them at Mulsanne corner. Fortunately, the damage was not severe and the engine was converted back for the race. On the Friday night, Le Mans had its third fatality. Marcel Michelot, commercial director of Gendron & Cie, took his car out for some practice laps. Getting disorientated in thick fog between Mulsanne and Arnage corners, he went off the road at speed and ploughed into a tree. Marcel Gendron, mourning his friend and co-founder, withdrew the other team car he was due to race himself from the race. On Saturday morning, the Tracta team-drivers were all injured in a bad road accident en route to the track. Boussod misjudged a corner near Arnage and the car fell off the road into a ditch at 60 mph. While Boussod was badly shaken and Grégoire was bruised, the other two were in much worse shape: Bourcier had a crushed leg and Fenaille had a severe head injury, ending up in a coma. They were taken to hospital but Grégoire contrived to escape and made his way back to the track, determined to race for the sake of his new company. Appealing to race director Charles Faroux he put out a plea over the public address asking for a volunteer co-driver. Lucien Lemesle, a local mechanic answered and Grégoire had just enough time to explain the peculiarities of his unusual car before the start of the race. Race Start After a lap of honour from the 1926-race winning Lorraine-Dietrich, the cars were once again flagged away by Émile Coquille, co-organiser and representative of the sponsor Rudge-Whitworth. Once again, the Bentley drivers' hood-raising practice proved itself as their three cars were first away with Clement leading Benjafield and d'Erlanger away in a Bentley 1-2-3 in the opening laps. The speed of the 4 ½ litre was underlined by Clement when he broke the circuit record in only the second lap of the race. Over the following few laps he whittled this down still further, to only 8 minutes 46 seconds for the 10.7 mile (17.3 km) circuit. This early-race performance was yet more remarkable as, at the time, the cars were required to run with their hoods erected for the first twenty laps (about three hours) of the race. After the first hour, the three Bentleys were well ahead of Laly's Ariès and the three Salmsons of de Victor, de Marmier and