A battle of the titans between the Porsche 917 and the Ferrari 512, the filming of the movie "Le Mans" produced by and starring Steve McQueen...the 38th edition of the 24 Hours of Le Mans promised a great deal. But that was without considering the weather nor the torrential downpour that flooded the 24 Hours circuit. After a cautious start, the #23 Porsche 917 K driven by the future winners - Brit Richard Attwood and German driver Hans Herrmann - took the lead in the 11th hour and never relinquished it through the checkered flag.

Today 77 years young, Richard Attwood only crossed the finish line three times in 10 participations: in addition to his win at the 1970 24 Hours of Le Mans, he finished seventh in 1968 (at the wheel of a Ferrari along with his fellow countryman David Piper) and second in 1971 (with a Porsche 917 K along with Swiss driver Herbert Müller).

The car of Attwood-Herrmann qualified last (16th) of the eight Porsche 917s at the start. Richard Attwood : "From my point of view, before we started after qualifying, we were not going to win this race."

The #23 Porsche 917 K's victory was the result of exceptional circumstances as well as a methodical, deliberate climb. Richard Attwood: "Hans started the race and I watched and it looked like a Grand Prix. We went on racing as it was a sprint race. We tuned the speed according to the conditions. In 1970, most of the race was in the rain. If the race had been run under those conditions today, a pace car would definitely have been sent out."

In the lead shortly before the midpoint of the race, pressure was brought on both by the weather, but also by the effort it took to remain in the lead with strictly no room for error. Richard Attwood: "We had to do 14 hours in terrible conditions and all we had to do was to finish the race. That was the challenge. The the biggest challenge was at the end, we had to finish without doing something stupid. I think it was the record for the fewest race finishers (in 1970, only seven cars made it into the standings; nine others crossed the finish line, including the Porsche 908 entered by Steve McQueen with three on-board cameras to capture shots during the race, but it failed to rank due to insufficiant distance traveled, Ed.)"

Learn more stories and anecdotes from the 1970 24 Hours of Le Mans from Richard Attwood himself in this video.

VIDEO: YouTube - Shift TV Channel