"I would have loved to have raced at Le Mans in the days before the chicanes were installed on the Mulsanne straight just for the challenge of it. I've talked with drivers who did, and they all say it was magic - if a little scary.
"The kink going down into Mulsanne Corner isn't an issue - it's now taken flat, but it can be dicey if you're three abreast. You need to get the car as close to the right-hand side as possible so the car is braking in a straight line. The deceleration is so fast that it's easy to lock a wheel and flat-spot a tire, so it's a fine line of knowing how close you can get to the edge.
"The trick going into the Mulsanne corner is getting the car slowed just enough to turn in. If it's dry all week, the surface is very grippy due to rubber buildup. You want to carry maximum speed into the straight leading to Indianapolis. It's crucial not to get up on the curb because that can hurt your exit speed.
"The next part of the track is really close to the trees, and when it's wet the spray just hangs in the air. This is always one of the last sections to dry out after a shower. The vision here is very limited; there are two blind sections where you're flat-out at 180 mph and you really must rely on the marshals to let you know what's ahead.
"Into Indianapolis, you dab the brakes and drop down to fifth gear through the right-hand turn and then you're hard on the brakes going into the banked left-hand corner. You can almost throw the car in there and let the banking catch you - that's quite comforting. You shoot out of Indianapolis to Arnage in third gear.
"Arnage is the most frustrating corner on the circuit. It's very slippery, very slow, and you feel that the car has almost come to a stop because you've been going so fast on the rest of the track. You can lose a lot of time in Arnage, and drivers frequently go off there. Unless you maintain 100 percent concentration, it's very easy to make a big mistake in Arnage at some point in the race.
"Now we're coming to one of my favorite parts of the track, the Porsche curves. This section has a great flow. It's bumpy on the entry, just a tap on the brakes and carry as much speed as possible going into the first right. You can take the next left flat - you turn in the car and hope that you don't run out of road on the exit. The car must be stable for the long right hander in the middle of the Porsche curves; it's downhill, off-camber, and can easily catch you out. You're feathering the throttle, braking, and turning the car into the final left-hander, which is the trickiest part. The last curve is really off-camber and it tries to put the car in the grass. There's also a big hole at the end of the curb from cars going off, and if you drop a wheel in there, it will spin the car into the wall in an instant.
"Coming out of the Porsche curves I'm hard on the throttle in fourth gear, through the wiggle going into the pit entrance or the Ford chicane. The gravel traps here just seem to have a magnetic attraction and drag cars into them. There are buckets of gravel on the racing line as the race goes on. The first chicane is quite quick and the second a little slower, with pylons that prevent drivers from cutting the corner. Those pylons usually get knocked down within the first few hours of the race. Then the tribunes flash by as you cross the start-finish line and begin another lap."
In 2006, Gavin and his teammates Olivier Beretta and Jan Magnussen performed this ritual 355 times to win the GT1 class, completing 3,011 miles - a distance greater than driving from New York to Los Angeles to San Francisco in 24 hours. Racing twice around the clock is a grueling test of endurance for man and machine, but there is no greater experience for a sports car driver than to stand on the victory podium at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
The 24 Hours of Le Mans will start at 3 p.m. local time (9 a.m. EDT) on Saturday, June 16, and finishes at 3 p.m. (9 a.m. EDT) on Sunday, June 17. SPEED will televise 17.5 hours of coverage in North America from 8:30 - 11 a.m., 5:30 - 7 p.m., and 8 p.m. to midnight EDT on Saturday, June 16, and from 6 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. EDT on Sunday, June 17.