Last week, at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, a rookie from Leawood, Kansas made history. Scott Tucker was the first American allowed to race one of Audi's multimillion-dollar, 200-mph diesel prototypes. Amazingly, he was fast.

Scott Tucker started racing in 2006 at the age of 44. He had never driven a race car before, and he had never even seen a race track. This year, for the first time ever, Audi let an American — let Tucker — drive one of its 200-mph R10 diesel prototypes at the world's greatest road race. He jumped into one of the most complex and expensive racing cars in existence, at one of the longest and most grueling races on earth. Despite having no experience with either, he did damn well.

How well? If trackside gossip is true, one of the pro drivers on Tucker's team — a French veteran brought on to drive fast and not hurt the car — crashed twice while trying to match Tucker's lap times. Feathers were ruffled.

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