Dave Murry's Le Mans Journal
Submission #1
"The Road to Le Mans"

My journey as a driver for the Porsche factory at Le Mans started in 1992 and 1993 when I drove for Lotus in the Supercar series. We raced against Porsche with Hans Stuck and Hurley Haywood. Alwin Springer of Porsche was able to watch me race for those two years, and we began to develop a relationship. Then in 1994, Lloyd Hawkins of New Orleans and I drove the Firehawk series. We won the driver and manufacturer championship for Porsche. That was another step in the Porsche direction.

In 1995, I was invited to drive the new Rohr Porsche GT2 car at the Daytona 24-hour race, and then to continue with the GT2 in the World Challenge series, which we again won the driver and manufacturer championships. This was my first factory Porsche drive. I also won "One Lap of America" for Porsche that year driving their new street all-wheel-drive turbo. In 1997, driving the 911 RSR with Jim Matthews was also a plus. We had some good results.

All of these years were building blocks for me with Porsche. Over several years I began to meet the Porsche folks in Germany at the year-end Porsche banquets. I began expressing my interests in Porsche and asked about being involved in their Le Mans program.

Porsche brought several drivers over from Europe, and even Danny Sullivan, to test the 1996 GT1 car during the test days at Daytona earlier this year. Porsche Cars North America and Alwin Springer helped to line up a few laps for me there. The test went well for me, and so the next week I was invited to test again in Southern France. I went over, and that test also went well. The next week I got the call. You're hired for Le Mans! I couldn't believe it. It was great!

I didn't know at the time which car I would drive, but none of the other drivers did either. Porsche was going to hire 12 drivers for the 4 cars and reserve the right to put any driver in any car that they felt would be the best fit. They also consider each driver's desire. I found out before pre-qualifying that I would be in the WSC car with Michele Alboreto and Stefan Johansson. I couldn't have been more pleased. I was teaming up with the 2 guys and the car that won last year's race! It is very rewarding driving with 2 drivers that I used to watch in F1, in a Porsche factory effort. Somebody pinch me!

If I keep my head on straight, Le Mans is somewhat like Daytona. It's a 24-hour race, and the way you win is pretty much the same - run fast and stay out of the pits. On the other hand, it's Le Mans! The track is over twice as long, 8-1/2 miles, and there are only 3 drivers. I've run Daytona for the past 5 years, and a lot of long showroom stock races, so I think I have the right mental outlook for a long race like this.

Sincerely,

David Murry

Photos courtesy of www.cyberspeedmedia.com