Evening with a Legend: David Murry

• So let’s begin near the beginning, you’d been racing for quite a number of years, building up your skills and reputation. Talk to us about how you got to LeMans in 1998 with Porsche. How was the deal put together? 
• 2000 – You return to LeMans in a Porsche 911 GT3, but not with Porsche but with the privateer team: SKEA RACING. What was that like compared to racing for the factory?
• 2001 – Back again at Lemans, this time in a Judd powered Reynard – what was that like? 
• 2001 you were also in the middle of Audi’s rise to dominance at LeMans – what was it like competing against the R8s? 
• What happened between 2001-2011; 10 year gap before returning to Le Mans?
• In 2011 you returned to LeMans with Robertson Racing in their Ford GT40 – Share Stories – but also; how had LeMans changed since you’d been back? 
• What do you feel is the most challenging part of driving at the 24 hours of LeMans?
• If you could go back to LeMans today and drive any of the 2023/24 season cars, what would that be?
• What’s next for David Murry?

and much, much more!

Crew Chief Brad: [00:00:00] Evening with a Legend is a series of presentations exclusive to Legends of the Famous 24 Hours of Le Mans, giving us an opportunity to bring a piece of Le Mans to you. By sharing stories and highlights of the big event, you get a chance to become part of the legend of Le Mans, with guests from different eras of over 100 years of racing.

Crew Chief Eric: Tonight, we have an opportunity to bring a piece of Le Mans to you, sharing in the legend of Le Mans with guests from different eras of over 100 years of racing. And as your host, I’m delighted to introduce David Murray, whose career began in Formula Fords, leading to the Sports Renault series, and then driving everything he could get his hands on from 1981 to 1991.

He won numerous races in the 85 [00:01:00] Sports Renault Championship. And in 1991, he saw the beginning of his long term relationship with manufacturers like Lotus, Porsche, and BMW, contracting him to drive the infamous BMW M3 GTR. And in 1998, he began his journey to win at Le Mans with four attempts from 1998 through 2011.

And with that, I’m your host. Crew chief, Eric from the motoring podcast network, welcoming everyone to this evening with the legend and David, welcome to the show. Thanks very much. I heard a lot about it. I’m looking forward to being on. I appreciate you having me. You’ve been racing for quite a number of years, building up your skills and reputation.

Talk us through the early days and how you got to Le Mans in 1998 with Porsche. How was that deal put together? What led to it? To you going to lama. Was that always a goal? Absolutely not. This was the real odd part,

David Murry: but my whole world started. I was doing autocross. I had a Fiat X one nine. I bought brand new in 1975.

Wasn’t very smart. I thought, I can’t afford to do this. So when I started racing on the track, I had to sell it because I didn’t have time to work on that and the [00:02:00] race car as well. But I did that autocross. Got my feet wet, but it was frustrating to be at the autocross all day long and do three one minute runs.

So I said, gotta be better, work your job, save my money, bought a Formula Ford. And I did that. And the first session was 20 minutes long. It was more than I’d driven in a whole year. I’m hooked. All the guys I raced against from Mike Andretti to Chip Robinson, Drake Olson, all those guys went on to do great things.

And I just knew that was where I wanted to be because that to me was the ladder to F1, which was my desire at the time, my goals. I thought, well, being a poor American, how would I get to F1? I traced it backwards. So the step before that would be IndyCar. And then the step before that would either be Formula Super V, which some of the guys like Chip Robinson, those guys did, or would it be through Imsa’s GTP series?

When I was racing in the spec race for Sport Renault, I started even back in Formula Ford days, as soon as I got my car, I started looking for sponsorship. And I was calling everybody on the planet and go, will you sponsor me? No, no, no, no. And one of the last calls after. four years of Formula Ford was to Joyce [00:03:00] Julius, who was a VP at Domino’s Pizza.

And she said, yeah, I think we can. I’m like, did you just say what I thought you did? And so she said, yes, we’re going to do Indy B Series. Had me go talk to Doug Shearson about doing that. Well, Doug came to the race at Detroit. We did the support race for F1 and Got to know a little bit talking about some of the stuff.

The budget went away when Danny Sullivan went to Penske and had a half a million dollar budget for his salary. So they got John Paul Jr. So they had that much money to do Indy B Series. But then John had to go serve time in jail for his dad, poor guy. And so then they got Al Junior to drive, salary went back up.

So now we did spec race for Fort Renault back in the day called that. So did that. But when asked Doug, I said, how do I get to IndyCar? Would you rather have a driver that did Super V? Or would you rather have a driver that did GTP? And he said GTP because of the horsepower. So that guided me towards the IMSA route.

And so I went to all the IMSA races after those four years of Formula Ford and one year of Spec Racer, slept in my car. I couldn’t afford a hotel and talked to every team owner I could. Can I drive your car? And they said, do you have any money? I said, no. They said, we’ll [00:04:00] beat it. After two years, I think I drove a Mini Metro, but it was a Metro, MG Metro Turbo.

And we put a sticker on it, GTUU, because it was so slow. It was under the GTU category. My first IMSA race ever, Ken Madren, Mark’s Buick GTP car in 1986 at the finale at Daytona. He let me drive it. Funny enough, I was testing my Ford one day and his son was there and somebody else said, gee, why don’t you let his son drive your car?

I can’t afford to have anything happen to it. I don’t have any money. I’m working two jobs to make it five races a year. So I did anyway, and Ken remembered it. He wasn’t even there, but some must have told great people and he wanted to help me. So he actually let me drive his GTP car with him at Daytona.

So that was the beginning of EMSA. And of course, then you’d go around asking for rides, nothing happened. And finally, after teaching for Skip Barber, one of my students said, if I buy a race car, will you race it? That was a Camaro that we ended up racing in Firehawk. Then the slow process of moving through EMSA, but the goal was still, how do I get to F1 or IndyCar or whatever else?

As I got further into IMSA and did more and more racing, Doc Bundy was racing for Hendrick Motorsports [00:05:00] and the GTP Corvette. When that program ended, the active suspension was made by Lotus. So he convinced Lotus to come back in where they’re a spree in Supercar and World Challenge. And he got me a drive with that, which was great.

So that was how I got introduced to Porsche. And then Porsche hired me to run the world challenge series, which we won the championship in 1995 for that. Then as we went on, they decided they were going to run Le Mans. Well, I didn’t know they were going to run 1997 at the Porsche banquet in Germany, Alvin Springer, head of Motorsport North America for Porsche.

Porsche was there and he said, do you want to test at Daytona? Yeah, of course I did. Okay. So that was in November. Then in January for the pre Daytona race back then, the roar, they were testing it at a dozen dollars. Alan McNish was their factory driver. And then they had all these other drivers from Europe and Danny Sullivan was there and Mule was there.

All these guys were there testing. So I went to Alvin. I was there actually running with Jim Matthews. That was 1998, the beginning of the year. And I was driving his LMP one car, the Raleigh Scott. Yeah. And I saw Alvin there and I said, so Alvin, [00:06:00] when do I drive? Oh, you still want to do that? Well, of course I do.

So he said, see that motor home? Go talk to him. That was Herbert Ampfer, who was the head of Porsche Motorsport worldwide. He said, just trust me. And Alvin was really on our side and pushed for me and tried to help me. So I went there and talked to Ampfer. I said, you know, I really like to drive for you. He said, well, North America is behind me, Fred Schwab, because they want us to have Americans in the car so they can sell more cars.

So I came back out and a little bit later, he didn’t give me an answer. And Alvin came back up on the last day. I said, okay. You’re going to get in the car with a brand new set of tires and you’re going to get five laps. And then you’re going to get out of the car a little bit later. You get another set of new tires and get in the car, do another five laps.

That’s it. And I had no idea what the test was for. So I said, okay, well, of course the plan was from them. Give him 10 laps. He won’t go fast because he won’t have time. We’ll say, I told you so, and it’ll all be over. Well, I was pretty motivated and the Roar team that I ran for in the World Challenge Series 95 was running the car.

Brad Kettler was the crew chief, Jochen was there, the whole team. John Wright was on the team, and [00:07:00] Alvin looked at me and said, You don’t hold back, you drive as hard as you can. And of course, I had still been in the LMP1 car all week, so I had time. I hadn’t driven carbon brakes, hadn’t driven the GT, it was a 96 GT1 car.

And I went and I did my first five laps. And it got out of the car and these guys were driving the car for three days. To be fair, they probably didn’t have a lot of time each one, because they were splitting the car with 12 people. So I got my five laps and came in and it looked at times I was already midfield in the 12 guys.

I’m like, that’s plenty more to go. And Alan McNish was great. He, I said, you know, what’s different about carbon brakes. He helped me out a little bit here. I just told me a few things. So I got back out in the car and I went out and drove my next five laps, but the checker flag fell after four for the weekend.

So I think I only got four laps, still went quicker than everybody, including Alan by like a half second. And of course they didn’t want it. So then Alvin calls me in a week and says, you’re not hired, but we’ll give you another test in South France, Val de Vienne. So I went there and went quicker than everybody, except for Alan, who was getting out of the car, puffing pretty hard.

So you’re trying pretty hard this time. He goes F and A. So he was trying really hard to go fast. [00:08:00] That went well. Then they hired me for Le Mans and that was the first time I even knew what the test was for. I didn’t know what I was testing for. We went back home for Le Mans, and that time, it was actually pre qualifying.

You had to qualify for the race. It wasn’t invitational. It was pre invitational. And so, when you went there in May, which was a month before the race, you had to qualify. Well, we had gone to Paul Ricard to test. And the funny thing there, too, is I’m just lowering the car. I’ve never been the driver. Paul car before we had one GT one, the nine six GT one, where they were running four cars in Lamar, right two of each.

Two of open LMP ones, two GT one cars. So they had the 12 drivers, three from each car out there to do a 24 hour test in the GT one. This is the first time the LMP one car had rolled out. McKay TTA was driving that car and Stephan New Hansen was there ’cause they were gonna drive together. I was the first one to drive.

Both cars and Europeans are a different approach than Americans. They wanna go faster than the co-driver of the car. They don’t care about anything else. They were trying to be fast to each other. I was just getting used to the car on the track. Somebody had set a lap baseline and one driver, I won’t say who it was, was German and went [00:09:00] like two seconds faster than everybody else.

And of course, Porsche’s going, yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s the German, yeah, yeah. One of the other guys, Michael Bartles overlays the data. And Michael’s fast from this guy all the way until they get down the back straightaway, where they had a makeshift chicane to simulate Le Mans with cones. Well, funny, his steering didn’t change.

And he went like 20 miles an hour faster than anybody through there. Pretty clear. He was blowing the skein off, said, don’t do that anymore. And anyway, test didn’t work because the gearbox had some problems. They couldn’t run it, but I drove the LP one car got along really well with the Yost guys and Ralph Yutner.

And McKaylee was the nicest racer I’ve ever met in my life. And so he actually treated me with respect, which I didn’t expect. I made the gum in his shoe. You know, here’s an F1 Ferrari driver. And same thing for Stephan Johansson. You know, at the end of the day, after we did that, they slotted me to drive with McKinley Alvareta and Stephan Johansson at Le Mans, the biggest event in the planet.

And so we went for the test at Le Mans. It was raining and drying up, so you couldn’t afford to have anybody in the car except one person because the track was changing so rapidly. So McKinley was the only one that drove. [00:10:00] and they were having me d but then I’d have to driv So they didn’t have me dr I didn’t drive them all a

Crew Chief Eric: So there’s a lot of testi two years, 97 to 98 leadi did a lot of racing in th done any actual racing in that point?

That was

David Murry: my f For pre qualifying May and street clothes, people go, Oh, David Murray, David Murray had no idea how big the event was because being American, honestly, and I appreciate it now, and that’s what was great about going back in 2011. Talk about that. But I had no idea how big Lamar was because I said I was testing for portions.

Didn’t know what for. And then when it went there in May, I’m just kind of slowly getting a grasp of how big of an event it really is. You know, you go to a restaurant and they go, Pilat, Pilat. I’m like, what? Yes, I’m a, oh, pilot. Yes, I’m a driver. Because we call drivers, right? So all the culture and all those things over there, but slowly you start to get encompassed in just how big this event is.

But you’re still under the pressure of representing the factor of the biggest race in the world. You don’t have time [00:11:00] to really enjoy it and absorb it. You’re just doing your job.

Crew Chief Eric: Testing in May, and then you kind of jump forward to June to the actual race. It’s a whole different circus, let’s call it that, when the fans are there, and you have all, you know, the booths.

and all the things that happened and the music and the festivals and all that. So your impressions of Le Mans when it came down to practice and qualifying and the race itself, what were your impressions of it? Was it as intimidating as everybody says it is? I’ve been

David Murry: racing for about 20 something years before that.

And you think, okay, I’ve been to every track in the world. planet. This track, the atmosphere, the track itself is different because the corners himself, except for the force occurs in Indianapolis, are nothing spectacular. I would say not their diminishing at all. They’re great corners, but they’re not anything like super.

But the straightaways, your approach speed is so high that now you’re breaking from 200 miles an hour. And even though Daytona has one like that, you’re sitting there riding it forever at 200 miles an hour. And you’re waiting, did I go by the restaurant yet? Or the little bar? Because you’re worried [00:12:00] you’re going to miss that, and then you’re on top of the corner before you know it.

You can’t stop. But when I first went in pre qualifying, before I went over, I knew I was going to do Le Mans. So I wanted to learn the track. Well there was no videos or sims or any that kind of stuff. So I actually went and they have a VHS video called NCAR 956. And it has all the tracks from the NCAR 956.

So I got that tape and now I’m looking at this tape which has a lot of tracks on it from NCAR from 956. And I’m looking, nope can’t be it because the straightaway is not long enough. Nope. Nope. Nope. Watch finally get to Lamar, which I don’t know what Lamar even looks like. And here we go on the straightaway and they get the fifth gear, which is top gear back then.

And they’re going 200 something miles an hour. And it just keeps going and going. I remember today watching that video for the very first time and laughing out loud. I say, I know there’s a kink in the middle. We haven’t gotten that yet. And so it was huge how long this straightaway was and that video had lapsed before the chicanes.

So that’s why it was like super long. And so anyway, so I got this video and I took and copied it from the VHS tape to an eight millimeter tape so I could bring my little camera, little [00:13:00] eight millimeter camera with me everywhere. I have one lap and I’d sit there and watch it to where my eye would get red from looking at the video and watching on airplanes and non stop so I’d get to the track.

My very first time, and this is before the track goes green in May pre qualifying, and the streets are still open. So I’m going to take my rental car, and I’m going to drive around the track to get a feel of what it really looks like in person. Down the mall sign, I’m going, okay, I’m getting ready for the right hander, and all of a sudden, it’s a left hander.

Well, next one’s supposed to be a right hander. It’s a left hander. I’m opposite. What? I have no idea where I’m at now. All that studying is nothing. Oh, I’m going the wrong way. So I turned around, went the other way, And it all made sense. So that helped me a tremendous amount. So pre qualifying was learning to track and I had no idea what to expect.

Even watching the videos and you think, okay, I know Indianapolis is gonna be really fast and I was planning for that. I had no idea how fast the Porsche curves would be. I guess John Dous, he was having issues and so he ended up, he wanted to drive the GT one. There wasn’t a seat for him, so then he wanted to drive the LMP one car.

He wanted to drive with Michaela Alberta and Stef Hansen. And so [00:14:00] Porsche asked me would I move over to the other car, which was James Weaver and Pier Raffael. And I said, I’ll do it because I’m a team player, because they said car’s the same. And I said, you know what? Cars are the same. I’m sure they are.

Everything’s the same, and the drivers are probably good, but for me personally, to drive with Michaela Al Baretta. And Stephan Johansson, what a personal bucket list that would be. I have a model that they make it every year for prequalifying, and they make another model of the car at the rates. And so this was at prequalifying.

It was number seven car. And on the car is the driver name. And it says McKaylee Alvareta, Stephan Johansson, D Murray. And so that’s incredibly special to me because I was on the car then they asked me to move over and I did for the race, but I got Stephan to sign it. But before I got McKaylee to sign it.

He had the accent and was skilled. Honestly, he was the most gentleman person I’ve ever met. I’m jumping forward, but when we went Petit Le Mans that year, I ran Jim Matthews car, the LMP1 from Riley Scott. Stefan Johansson drove this car at Petit Le Mans. We both started the race and [00:15:00] we had an incredible battle for probably 45 minutes.

Where the Porsche was faster in the straight, I had more downforce. And I remember trying to, well, the only place I can do it is the corner. So I tried to get underneath him at turn three at Atlanta and he chopped the door on me. And I’m in my helmet in the race, laughing my head off and smiling, thinking, I just got chopped by McKinley Alberta.

How cool is that? So big, big impression for that. Go back to the race, the prequalifying, not a lot of fans. There’s still some there, but when you come back for the race, that’s when the impact hits you of how big a deal this really is. There’s 300, 000 fans there. Yeah. You go to the actual tech downtown at Lamar on Monday.

That’s how the whole thing starts. And they have a stage and they’re interviewing people. You go and it’s incredible the number of people and how big an event it is for the entire week, plus the pre qualified before. But that week, And then every day, more and more fans come from the Bentley ran there at the year, they had all the people from England coming over at another a hundred thousand, you know, we have a big fan base here and stuff, but the track there is spread out so big.

And to have that many people everywhere and you’re going in the infield, [00:16:00] it’s like you’re going to another city. It’s crazy. And there’s people everywhere. It was definitely an eyeopener for me in a great way. I think Indianapolis says they’re the biggest single day spectator event in the planet. Well, that’s because Lamar’s over two days.

When you have that many people, right? It’s mind boggling. And I’m flattered every year I get an email from ACO for a credential to go to Le Mans. So I’m waiting until I go back for my son races.

Crew Chief Eric: You were there during the new era of Le Mans. That transition happened in 1990 into 1991, where they added the chicanes and all the new pits and the new buildings and all those kinds of things.

And as you said, 1998, your first attempt at Le Mans, and they say you never forget your first. So run us through the 1998 race. What happened? How did it end? It could have ended

David Murry: better for me. It was great because when we first went there, like I said, we did the pre qualify and then we went back for the race.

Similar now, but at that time, there were Monday, Tuesday were tech, Wednesday and Thursday were on track, Friday’s a break. So Wednesday and Thursday were the same, seven to nine and 10 to midnight. And the 10 to midnight [00:17:00] was clarified as night running. So you had to run three laps at night and then the seven and nine and the same thing for the second.

And every lap was a qualifying lap. So they just took the best lap of four hours. And I remember we went there, Pierre Raffanel went out first because he was French and from that place. So he went out and we had two transmissions. We’re going to run. And again, I’m running the LMP one car. They asked me which one I want to drive.

And because I drove LMP over here and the GT one, I drove it at Paul Ricard and the tight corners. You couldn’t see the apex because the big giant mirror there and the APO stuff like that. So you know what? I like the open car better. So I picked that. And so James Weaver, Pierre Efrenel and myself. So Pierre started the session at seven o’clock on Wednesday and on the outlap, I think it was, or the second lap on the track, the car had a transmission failure.

We were trying to run the dog box up to qualifying until the race, because it was a little bit quicker and then run the synchro box. For the race. And so we went out there and the dog box failed on track. So we stuck on track until 9 PM when they then could tow the car back and now start changing the transmission.

So they [00:18:00] changed the gearbox. And by the time they get finished with our gearbox, it was after 11 o’clock, 11, 15, 1130, something like that. And each driver has to do three night laps. So you have to go by twice. And so, okay, we got to get a night run. So Pierre goes out first, checks the gearbox out, does his three laps, comes in, gets out of the car.

James Weaver’s been in before. He gets the car, goes out, does three laps, checker flag. So Dave still hasn’t qualified for the race. So now I’m like, okay, not nervous. And now the car, when James drove it, it was like, okay, we need to make some adjustments for the suspension too. We haven’t had a chance to sort it out.

So they took the car that night. Wednesday night to the airport, do some cornering and they made some changes, came back and then on Thursday, I started the session so that I get my time in. And so I did a full tank of gas, which is 45 minutes and probably what, seven times around the track. So I’ve seen this corner seven times now, but it helped to know where the track was and where it went.

And then I got back in at night and did my three laps at night and then time for the race. Well, as the race went on, I got more comfortable in the car. And we did test the car some other [00:19:00] places at VISOC and of course driving Jim’s LMP1 car. So I was comfortable in the car, just needed to learn the track.

And while I did my first 45 minutes, I actually contributed, made some shock changes in the car, which were the right direction. And James was happy with that. So we did that. When we did the race, I got better and better in the race. And at night, I had a battle with. We were leading went back and forth. It was raining.

One of the GT one cars had already been out. I think McKinley actually had to go off the gravel trap and hit the wires. And so they were done. Like I said, done a stint in the daytime and now at night it was dry. And then after my stint in the dry and we had issues with the electrical too. When I got the car the first time, I was supposed to leave it in gear, so I got in after Michele.

So he’s left it in first gear and shut the motor off. I get in, I’ll just start the motor up, because you have to have the motor off to do the fuel. The gear readout on the dash was jumping around, so I didn’t know what gear it was in, so it was a problem with the electrical. And Michele had to go back and forth with gear, because he couldn’t see what gear it was in.

And so anyway, then, then Yost Reinhold was like, did you leave it? I said, yep. I left it in gear, shut it off like I’m supposed to, but the electrical [00:20:00] glitches are happening. And it finally got to the point where the radio didn’t work. And then at night you’re breaking for the chicanes, the headlights would go out and they wouldn’t come on until you started to release the brakes, turned in for the chicanes.

But it wasn’t bad because at Lamar and when you went to the straightaway, the moon so bright, it’s lightened up pretty good. You’re only dark for what, five or six hours. Anyway, the guardrails are closed down the straightaways. So when your lights are on, they’re bouncing off the guardrails in addition to the ground.

So it’s pretty lit up better than it is in other tracks that are maybe. More of a permanent road course where there’s no guardrails close to the track. It’s further out. So all the electricals were out, the lights were going off, no radio. So I remember at night, I’d already been in the car a few stints. I ran one drive stint and we were leading in the LMP1 category.

At Vysoc, we tested the LMP1 car. It was faster than the GT1s were the day before. So, okay, good choice. Well, with the law, because they had a bigger restrictor and ABS and more downforce, they were faster at Lamar. So we were running for class with not overall one full step in the drive. Then it starts rain.

And I came in and [00:21:00] changed for rain tires. We were four seconds faster than GT ones at night in the rain. And my second step, Josh, that the West, that was over. As I was coming to the fuel load, the tread squirm, when you’re going through the kinks before Indianapolis, the car would wander out because the tread squirm was getting really, really bad.

Came in, they didn’t know what tires, because they couldn’t tell them on the radio. And I came in and I said, intermediates. And they put intermediates on. What they failed to tell me was they were not in the tire warmer. And so the first lap out, first chicane, slippery, and it just went around, just grazed the guardrail backwards.

And I said, you know what, I better go and check it out, Let’s be sure. So I went in, they didn’t see any damage, but then they looked at it and said, well, it changed the wing. They saw something that changed the wing. And I got out and Weber got in and he went out, ran 20 minutes and the deck lid blew off.

And the other, they took the deck lid off when they changed the wing and the catches must’ve come undone. So the deck lid blew off and they went, okay, they retired the car. That was a big letdown for there. But I think there was so many issues going on. Yost had won that race a bunch before because he had triple stinted.

We thought we were going to be able to go four stints on a [00:22:00] set of tires. We couldn’t go any further than the GT1, they would change tires every stint. So the advantage that we thought we had wasn’t there and their car was just so much faster. We couldn’t run with them and the Toyota was fast and the Mercedes and the Rails was fast.

We just couldn’t compete with those guys.

Crew Chief Eric: 1998, a little bit of a letdown, but so much experience gained from that first run at Le Mans. Two years goes by, here we are at the year 2000, and you return to Le Mans in a Porsche again, but this time a 911 GT3. And you’re not with the Porsche factory team.

You’re with a privateer, you’re with skier racing. So what was it like to go back to Lamar in a GT production based car compared to running an LMP?

David Murry: It was different. Both of our four experiences there, two were prototype and two were GT. The GT car, it’s funny cause you’re going straight away. You’re pretty fast in straights.

The cornering ability is nowhere near there where that is. You remember the track the same as it was. The Porsche curves, I will say, the one place that’s really tricky, after you make the very first really fast one coming off the straightaway, in the transition going from the right one to the left one, you’re slowing down, but you’re [00:23:00] going so fast.

I mean, a prototype, you’re probably doing 170 or something like that. And that transition, the only thing I can attest it to is the flat bottoms of the cars. When you’re making one transition to another, you’re changing the downforce, the platform, and the bottom to the ground. It gives more grip and then gives less grip.

So it makes it want to walk out. It feels like the car is going to get away from you on that transition. But the GT car, and even though we still had some factory, a little bit, not a lot, because Sascha Massen drove with us, and Johnny Molen and myself. So we were still a private team, but with Sascha there too, it helped with a little bit of stuff.

But we still, we were running against the factory cars, which was Dick Barber. And they had a huge budget and Tony Dow, and he knew how to make things fast. And they had another wing that was on the car within the rules and homologation, that was a very thin wing for the law. And so he could make it go faster in the straight, pick up time there.

And then it went in the race, but then it got disqualified for too big a fuel load on the car. And so we ended up finishing second because you’re in the middle of your [00:24:00] career, trying to still have a good result and performance. So it was still a big effort. And so that was, uh, I’ll say a different experience.

But the pressure is still there because now you’re trying to drive with other guys that are fast and it matters where you’re at and where’s your result. And so we’re not lucky, but we were glad that we had a good result to go back with too bad. We didn’t have a chance to win, but it was close. I’ve been the bridesmaid there and Daytona and Sebring more than you can count.

Crew Chief Eric: One of our other guests talked about being there in production cars versus LMP cars. It was kind of funny when they described being on the other side of the table, they’re used to going so fast that you kind of chew up and spit out the little cars, but when you’re the little guy, it’s a lot more intimidating.

You have to be a lot more situationally aware you’re driving in your mirrors a lot more. Did you find yourself suddenly a little bit more on edge because of the speed differential?

David Murry: No. And it’s funny when you say that all these memories come back because I had driven so much in the States. On both sides.

And that’s what I think really helps. If a driver’s only done one, he’s only done prototypes or only done GT cars, you don’t understand the [00:25:00] mindset and the challenges of the other driver. And because I’ve driven the LP1 cars, and now I’ve driven GT cars, you know what to look for. And of course, back then, The cars were open cockpit for the most part, the GT ones were closed.

But when you have an open cockpit car, it was great because in a GT car, you can look back and see the helmet, even the closed car, you can some degree and see who’s in the car. And you go, Oh, that’s Alan McNish. When I see Alan McNish, Butch Lightsinger, any of those guys, I’ll look back and go, I already know exactly what they’re thinking.

Their mindset is as mine is let’s get to the corner and don’t slow each other down. and try to make it as painless as it can for both of us. And the telegraph is huge. Let’s say McNish came up behind me or Butch. And I can see I’m getting ready to go to the brake zone for the chicane. If he pulls his car directly behind me, that’s telling me I’m not going to go past you.

So I can then focus on the corner, get to the corner, and as I’m exiting the corner, I can look back. And I remember one pass in particular, I’m in a GT. Here comes Allen. And he comes out and he goes back. Then you can go outside. You didn’t need to use the exit. [00:26:00] to the guardrail. So he would go to the outside and I come out, I’d move the left a little bit and give him room.

And there’s nothing better than that ballet between a GT driver and an LP driver. On the flip side, if you see somebody like Max Angeli behind you, you’re sweating and pouring down because you know it’s going to be not a good experience because he’s going to try and pass you when he shouldn’t and things like that.

So those are the things that you actually watch and see who’s in the car to know. What they’re going to do.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, I’m glad you brought that up because 2000 was also the year that Andretti was there in the Panos. Was he putting a little pressure on you to being in a GT car?

David Murry: Yeah. And you know, Lamar is such a big track.

It’s funny how you end up running with people, but not as close as you. There’s so many of the factors that’s not just racing against the other car. You’re aware of all that stuff, but at the end of the day, you’re saying, I want to keep that thing going because it’s a race for 24 hours. Who gets there first, not who’s going to battle out right then and there.

Went back in 2011, tuned it to the fuel over here and one’s E85, one’s E10. So we went over there, car wasn’t very fast in the straightaway. [00:27:00] And I remember in the race, faster car come by, they were good in the corners. And I started drafting and I picked up like three or four seconds a lap. And my engineer’s on the radio going, you better don’t, don’t take any chances.

Don’t take any chances. He thinks I’m taking all his chances and I’m on the radio going, Lee, it’s like so easy right now, got a hook to the car in front of me. I’m just riding. I’m not doing anything. I’m not driving hard at all. It’s a place where so many things matter that don’t matter in other places and vice versa to some degree.

You think you’ve done and seen it all until you go there. It’s like, no, it’s a different place.

Crew Chief Eric: So you just wave as Mario goes by down the straightaway. It’s all good. So that jumps us to 2001. You’re back at Lamar again, back to back. As you mentioned, you leapfrogged between LMP cars and production cars.

This time you’re there in a Judd powered Renard. And so I want to talk about the Renard and what that was like driving compared to the Porsche and everything else, but you’re also in the middle of everything. Audi’s rise to dominance at Le Mans, their first win in 2000, they had unfortunately been some setbacks with the original R8 Roadster back in the late nineties.

Now they’re rising [00:28:00] to power. They’re going to do their 13 years of dominance. What was that like being there with them in an LMP car as well? That

David Murry: was a whole different era. In 98, Porsche ran, and I remember they built a new LMP1 car for 99. And I remember Alan McNair talking about testing it at Vysok and stuff.

He was so excited. The car was so much better and faster than the 1998 car. But Porsche decided not to run it. Because Audi came out with their R8 and we’re going to run that. And I guess kids and cousins don’t race against each other. So they ended up pulling the Porsche and ran the Audi R8 starting in 99, I believe.

And then they ran 2000 on. And what I remember is Porsche was designed the car, 98 car, because they didn’t really win much FIA that year. They built it for the beginning of the season. Audi waited until Le Mans to have their final car. So they had six months more of development. And I remember when they ran it, Moskvort, they had off an incident, hit the wall, got it back in the pit lane and with four bolts, changed the entire rear [00:29:00] assembly, engine, transmission, and suspension, put a new one on like five minutes and went back out.

And that’s when Porsche went, okay, we’re never going to design and build a car for the beginning of the year. They want to wait for Le Mans to make sure it’s right, but in a series, you’re going to have to. So anyway, when Audi came out, it was the beginning of the Audi era, really, right? They won so many races nonstop because the cars were not only fast, but they were also reliable and they were built in a fashion of easy maintenance.

A lot of work to go into, let’s change this piece quick, make it happen. So they thought about the Reliability, speed and quick repairs, and they were quieter to, of course, the Peugeot was the beginning of the really quiet era, but these cars would come by you and you couldn’t even really hear him. If you’re a GT car until they were by here to win the turbo goodbye.

Whereas the old days. You had the loud engine noise, the engine sounds. That was when that era all started. And then they grew up to what? Thousand pounds of torque and just stupid fast of how much that stuff was. I think we ran in 98. We were running Ford motor. We ran the Raleigh Scott had like [00:30:00] 650 horsepower.

And it’s funny because my son ran the LMP2 cars past several years. Those cars are faster than the LMP1 cars when we ran back then. And a lot of it is due to the technology in Somewhat tires, but suspension, I mean, the aero for sure. That’s where our GT cars improved most recently was aero, but to see the LMP cars in the slow corners compared to like a Porsche 962 would turn so much quicker and crisper and be gone.

As opposed to the old cars, you know, I’ve driven those back in Rennsport. 962s or the BMW had to come out at the Monterey Historics and drive their old 86 GTP car. And it’s like, come on, baby, come on. You can do this. You know, it’s like, cause it just feels like a heavier car. So the technology of suspension stuff just continued to make those things so much faster and easier and better to drive.

Crew Chief Eric: So in 2001, you’re in the Renard, you’re in the mix with Audi. What was that like, just trying to stay at pace? That race, if

David Murry: you remember, it rained on the start of the race. And I was driving with Milka Duno and John Graham. And so she started the race and it was dry. So we went out halfway around the [00:31:00] track, on the pace lap, it poured.

They had a ton of cars go off and ours was one of them. So she went off, had the crash, came back in. And I remember getting ready to get up at midnight to get in the car. They finally got the car fixed. When the tech inspectors were there watching you do that, watching the crew fix the car and have to get it all fixed, put that together, ready to drop it out, they went, nope, you can’t do that because on the front crash box, it had ripped it off.

It pulled, I guess, the mounts or the threads out of the car. And so they just drilled them in a different spot, but it wasn’t homologated that way, so they wouldn’t let us run. And so that was super disappointing. So we didn’t get any laps really in the race at all. So we didn’t get a chance to do that stuff.

Crew Chief Eric: It’s funny you bring up the big downpour because one of our other Evening with the Legend guests talked about that particular race. And we’re kind of hyper focused on 2001 because it’s a special year in a lot of ways. The weather conditions, the beginning of Audi’s back to back, all these things are happening, the crashes and whatnot.

It’s funny. But if I look at your driver resume with a little bit more careful microscope, I noticed that you either leapfrog with this other guest or you ran in the same series together and [00:32:00] that’s Andy Pilgrim. And so he came on and talked about 2001 and being there with the C5R and the team Corvette program.

So I was wondering, you know, you guys traded paint over the years. What was it like running with Andy at Le Mans?

David Murry: Andy is one of the best people on the planet. Best drivers. Everything about Andy is awesome. We actually raced Firehawk together back in the early nineties. And so, yeah, we traded paint and rubbed each other a little bit here and there.

Had some great runs. He was in the Firebird and I was in a Porsche 944 for a while, 968, and then went back to some Firebirds and stuff like that. So we raced against each other a lot there. Then we ran Lotus for the factory, the Lotus Esprit that Doc started all the stuff. Running for a little bit, then Andy came and we all had our own car because it was short races.

And it was great because I remember we’d all go out for the first session. This is where Doc Bundy was great too. He had help for a setup and just organizing me. We’d all go out, run a session, come back, and Andy and Doc and I would sit and debrief, and we would talk about it with the engineers what we needed for the car.

So then we all agreed, okay, Doc’s going to stay [00:33:00] on the springs we’re on, and I’ll go softer and Andy will go stiffer. And we come back and debrief after the next session. So we knew where it was with Doc’s baseline of the springs that we ran before, and I’m softer than Andy Stiffer. So you knew which way to go.

You can’t do that with a lot of drivers, because I was saying before the European drivers, there’s so much competition. They’re not going to tell you anything. Oh, it was terrible, but keep me on the stiff springs. You should go to the soft spring, stuff like that. Andy and Doc. You could trust them implicitly to be honest and forth.

Cause we just want to do what was right for the team. At the end of the day, we’d all be doing better. And so Miami, one time we ran the Lotus Esprit and that race early in the year, we finished one, two, three. So it was a great team effort. And yeah, Andy, Andy is awesome. And like I said, he ended up going to Corvettes and run the GT1 category, which we were running the GT2 category or GT.

So we weren’t competing together, but be on the track same time. But we all, like I said, we did Firehawk race against each other, Firehawk and a bunch of other stuff.

Crew Chief Eric: And I bring it up because that’s at the peak of Corvette versus Viper and Corvette’s multi year dominance as well in GT1. So as an [00:34:00] American in France at Le Mans, seeing this all unfold, how did you feel about that?

Seeing Corvette just kicking butt and taking names?

David Murry: Most of my career has been with Porsche and I got a special place in my heart for them because of all that stuff. I got some really good friends in Porsche Motorsport, Porsche cars, everything else. And so that’ll always be geared to me because of the opportunities I had.

But there’s also that side of me that says, why don’t we have more Americans and more American entries everywhere? It’s like, Porsche won’t run a lot of Americans over there, but why don’t we run more Americans here? You know, it’s a great, I think it’s been since me, Patrick Long is about the only one that’s done that.

That’s been the Porsche driver. And I’m glad to see that was for a long term, but to see Corvette, Andy and Kelly Collins, and those guys, Americans running was awesome. And you want to just cheer him on for that stuff because of that stuff. And Doug Feehan run the program. It was great to see him being loyal to those guys.

But you know, when you see, I remember it was disappointing to me LMP one cars years and years ago. I think the only American on the team was Wayne Taylor. Which is kind of a [00:35:00] dual citizenship, but that was disappointing to me. And really disappointed when you see the commercial for Cadillac and they drive the LP one car down the street, pulling the all American driveway and the all American dad gets out and they have our mom and the three point two kids.

And you’re like, wait a minute. That’s not what I, so it’d be great if they did actually another marketing guys would like that. But it’s great to see that robbery. And of course we did the four GT and we raced against Corvette. And so that was

Crew Chief Eric: pretty emotional. That whole thing was great. Well, we’re going to get to that, but we got to explain what happened between 2001 and 2011.

You got a 10 year gap before returning to Lamont. Racing

David Murry: over the States. With a lot of EMSA GT stuff, we ran with Synergy. We ran Osco, ran helped Craig Stanton win the championship 2005. And so we had a lot of stuff going on that. We ran Peterson White Lightning, which was a quasi factory effort, but they had the true factory effort that they would get the, okay, this motor goes here and you get this motor.

And so it wasn’t quite the same, but we had a lot of factory support. And that was great because they had [00:36:00] myself and Johnny Mollem. You love the gentleman drivers because that’s what keeps this whole thing going. But when you have a chance to drive with another professional driver with a team that’s funding it all and running it, all they care about is winning.

That was a really special year. So we had Craig Stanton and I drove that year together. We finished in the podium, six out of nine races. Fantastic. And the only reason we didn’t win is because the factory cars, which had their special mojo, would be hard to beat. When we finished ahead of one of them sometimes, or right behind them most of the other time.

We had a really good season there. And then the other times you’re racing different cars, whether it’s with Porsche or other cars, trying to get back to Le Mans, but the opportunity is not always there. And so for me, you’re obviously trying to do what you can do, and the way to do that is to do it over here in Epsom.

Do well. And then when somebody needs somebody to drive at Le Mans, hopefully you’ll fill that bill, because that is the biggest prize out there.

Crew Chief Eric: That opportunity presented itself in 2011, and we got to see the car that you drove earlier this year at M1 Concourse when we did the Le Mans viewing party there, and Andrea Robertson was there with the GT40 [00:37:00] that you drove with her and Dave.

She shared some stories while on set. Stage about that year, and you know how you guys did and everything, but 10 years had passed since you had been to Lamont. So let’s talk about being there with a whole different car, you know, running a Ford on a private tier team. How did the track change? How did you change, you know, like a decade had gone by?

Did it all come back to you? Was it like riding a bicycle? You know,

David Murry: tracks were like that. When you went back to Lamont, it was like saying it. ’cause like you said. The track configuration is the same and it’s funny how when you drive a track and we drove three 24 hour races, you have enough laps. It’s instilled in you.

You don’t take any time to get back that muscle memory of how to drive the track. So that was all the same. What was great for me personally was in 98 the pressure was enormous because you’re trying to perform at your peak. Part of your career and everything matters. The pressure is there. And so you’re performing, but you don’t have a chance to enjoy it until now reliving it years later.

But when I went back in 2011 with Dave and Andrea, who are the best people on the planet, knowing you feel you’re [00:38:00] solid in that spot, The pressure after doing that, like I said, 10 years off and now going back at a different part of your career, you still want to win, but maybe the more confidence or I don’t know how you look at it, but I was able to actually enjoy it this time and it was fantastic.

And then to take Dave and Andrea, who had never done, I think they did Sebring before that, and we only finished nine hours, something like that. But anyway. They’ve never done a 24 hour race in their life. So to go over there and to kind of help them bring them along and cut a lot of shortcuts to the process and the experience down so they enjoy it.

Dave was at Sebring when we first did Sebring. He would drive his 45 minute stint or ever get out and walk around, drink coffee and talk to everybody. He’s like, no, Dave, you got to rest because you need your energy. At Le Mans that year, I think Dave drove like four hours. Andrew and I drove like almost 10 hours each.

She was a machine. And when we first met them, they were okay. And then, so Andrew and I, we worked out every day we were at the track. We get done, we go running, we go to the gym. And she was really motivated. And so we got great shape. So she could [00:39:00] run, but she wanted to. But her issue was, she was so nervous that she didn’t want to eat.

And then Andrew, you have to eat because you need that energy. Every time I do a 24 hours, every stint I’ll get out, I’ll eat 2000 calories because you burn that much. And so you did the first stint and she was like, I didn’t want to eat. They went, she got out and that took the butterflies off. And then she started eating like she should like 2000 calories.

So she did the entire race. Like I said, 10 hours, her eyes went back and forth most of the night. And it was really good to see that and have them come along and experience this incredible event as a participant. And then to come away with the podium finish. For me, I was happier for her and Dave to have that result than myself.

And I mean, and I was thrilled myself. But to have her there and experience that stuff. And I know she told you that, did she tell you it was her anniversary? Yep. Did she, she showed you a picture of that. She’s got, I was sleeping. So obviously getting rest. And I saw it later on where Dave stand there with a rose.

She gets out of the car. I get it to her. It gets in, drives away. I mean, what a unique couple and still performed, did the job they had to do. You know, and the nicest [00:40:00] people. And they let the team do the job. Okay. You do that. That’s what you do best. And if you have questions, you might ask her. But he relied on people and sometimes you’ll get folks that come in from the outside and well, I’ve been successful here.

So let me tell you how to do this. It’s not their forte. And once they start making decisions and the effort suffers a little bit. And so these guys didn’t do that at all. And then they could focus on the driving and that’s what they both did. And I think Andrew has worked at that harder than anybody I’ve ever seen.

We did a new track. Sure. She did it for Lamar as well. I sent a video of the entire race from a GT perspective from in car, cut that one good lap out so she could watch that lap over as much. She watched that one lap probably a hundred times, it was a three or four hour race. She watched the entire race four or five times before she went, so she was prepared before she went.

To put that effort and energy into it, but then you look at the results. My advice was when we went to Le Mans, everything matters, I said go as fast as you can go, knowing not thinking, you’re not going to make a mistake, because once you make that mistake. It’s over and so they did that and the only issue we had I think I had a tire that came apart and I just [00:41:00] went slow to bring it back in to get that fixed.

The paddle shifters had an issue and the team was prepared so we just kept driving it until we came in and they just connected the shifter. Went back out, didn’t miss it. That’s the only issues we had the entire time. And neither one of those took any time at all. And so that’s what said back in Lamar, you think all these other tracks, like Daytona or Sebring, cause they’re hard on the car.

And you think that would be an issue for liability. Lamar is a huge reliability factor involved in that. And it’s amazing, I guess because you wouldn’t think hard of a car being fairl but it’s tough.

Crew Chief Eric: There’s a mechanical sympathy and t that Lamont chooses its w to think about it from a I think a lot of legends that have been on the show have expressed the idea of Lamar changed them as a driver.

So I wonder, Dave, how did Lamar change you, all of its challenges, the changing weather conditions, all the things you went through, your four attempts at getting on the podium of Lamar and finally clinching it there in [00:42:00] 2011, what’s the biggest and most important takeaway from Lamar and again, how did it change you?

David Murry: How could it not change you? Right? You go there realizing it’s a once a year event. That’s the biggest event in the planet. And you realize that, okay, how many chances will you have? So I have four shots at it. It’s difficult for all the factors that go into it. And like I said, the weather changes, you don’t have the three mile track.

That’s okay. It might rain a little bit here, but the odds are it’s going to rain in one part of the track and the other part of the track are not going to be for long. And Le Mans, it’s such a big track. There’s no telling what will happen in one part of the track versus another. The change in the nighttime, there’s very little night running.

The guardrails. I mean, there’s so many different things about that event that are so different than anywhere else. It helps you to understand that each time you go to an event, whether it’s here, Daytona, wherever it is, it allows you to look at these new factors that weren’t a factor before. And be better at those because you have more experience in different circumstances, either whether it’s the weather difference, whether it’s the difference in [00:43:00] night, the guardrail lights, all these things bring more tools in your toolbox.

And it might not even be the instance that actually happened. We went there and I thought it was pretty neat. The team, they put a toolbox in the car, because you can work in the car if it stops on track. They put a cell phone in the car, so you can call and talk to the crew. In German, I don’t know, so you just push one and hold it and speed dials to the crew.

We didn’t have to use that, but I thought, what a clever idea. And that’s the difference between a factory and then, you a huge track, you’re so far away or radio might not work or maybe a car radio doesn’t work. And then if you’re back in the engine compartment, you want to have a light and a phone to say, well, this belt goes here.

Oh, take that. Okay. This bolt towards that. Okay. I got it. And there help talk you through. I can’t wait. So the future is going to be. They’re going to put headband with a camera in there and you’re going to have that on with the light shining on the engine and they go, yeah, see that bolt to your right? No, no, a little bit higher over that and take that and turn it.

It’s technology that continues to get better and better, better on that line. When I went, BMW had me come out to the Monterey historics a few years back when BMW was the mark and had me drive their [00:44:00] 86 GTP car. And I remember sliding down the seat to see if the fit was like. And I’m like, wow, there was one analog tachometer, push button reset, and two idiot lights in orange and red.

I went, how primitive? And I went, that’s how we drove them. That’s how it was. But the evolution is so continuous, you don’t see it happening. And now I’ll go back and tell my son, I said, wish I had good in car video. From back in 98, because that’d be great to have that. Oh, look here. I am at Lamont and the video was terrible back then.

And we even in 2011, it was not really much data. I mean, I remember 98, they had the flagship, which is like, wow. But in 2011, we had the smarty cam and put that in the Ford GT. It was standard definition. The antenna was inside, didn’t work. We kept telling them, no, it doesn’t work. No, no, it’s all good. And then they finally went, okay, so they got an external antenna.

And then finally the HD came out and was like, GoPro would have been great to have back then, just to have video, right? I mean, who’d have thought? Well, I went scuba diving back 100 years ago in Hawaii and we’re going to video. So we got a [00:45:00] VHS camera, big giant thing. It was in a big cylinder that weighed 120 pounds.

You put the water and video now a GoPro and 10 times better quality.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, since we’re talking about the evolution and a little bit about the future, we’ll wrap up with a couple of questions here for you, Dave. In the rise of popularity, especially in Formula 1, of people that never were really interested in racing, and some of this has to do with COVID and programs like Drive to Survive and things like that.

I often get these questions like, why would I want to watch endurance racing? Why would I want to watch 24 hours of Lamar? So if somebody came up to you that is into racing and says, Dave, you drove it Lamar, why would I want to watch this race? What would you say to them? What a fantastic

David Murry: question.

Crew Chief Eric: Because

David Murry: over my years, almost one of that myself, like, and F1, the car is great.

You know why there’s always, always passing in sports car racing, because you’re running multiple classes at the same time. Not only is it exciting to watch passing, but it sets up picks and opportunities for cars within their own class to [00:46:00] pass each other. If I become a prototype in this GT car there, I might use that GT car as a pick.

And that’s incredible racing. If you watch Le Mans, it works both ways because the excitement is, Oh, the prototype is going to catch these GT cars in about a half a lap. Well, what’s going to happen when that happens? And is that going to set up an opportunity for the second place prototype to pass for the lead?

Or is that going to set up for the number one prototype to keep the lead because it uses the pick, or is that going to affect the GT race? I mean, there’s so many things going on that in a single make race is nowhere near to me as exciting because how many times you watch single make race, it’s a boring lead follow race.

Not their fault, and Formula One’s tried by going, oh, let’s do DRS. Then they got so far, and the length of the straightaway depends on how easy it is. Then all of a sudden, they’re driving by them, there’s no defense, there’s no fight. Where’s the battle? And so that’s why I didn’t see it until a number of years ago, Rene Arnoux and Jill Villeneuve having a battle.

F1 race that went back and forth. That’s when I think the best racing was when they had these cars, you had shift with H patterns and they [00:47:00] actually draft each other and all this stuff. And they went back and forth several times. Of course, there’s only two cars, but how often do you get those cars that close to each other and have a good race?

And I said, the DRS, well, it does help passing. It loses some of the, well, where’s the battle. I hopefully I can get that a little bit better, but, but back to sports car, there’s

Crew Chief Eric: passing all the time. There’s always that challenge. So Dave, it’s been 10 plus years since you’ve been at Le Mans. Let’s say you could get back in the driver’s seat this coming season.

Drive any of the 2023 or 2024 cars at Le Mans. What would you drive? Because of my

David Murry: history and opportunities, the Penske Porsche would be pretty nice. But because of the American, a Wheelan Cadillac. You are an LMP guy through and through. It’s funny. I’ll tell you one of the story prototypes. It’s like, if you ever been in a track street car and then you have a GT car with It’s a massive difference between a GT car with slicks and a prototype is more than that.

It’s crazy how much faster it is. And until you’ve been in that situation, that car, you can’t appreciate it. [00:48:00] And my son, I told him that story. And of course, we tried to get him to go a little bit of NASCAR to expose me to everything. And I said, first time you drive a prototype. And of course, team asked me to do an LP three car.

We brought my son along. He did some laps and okay. Now let’s do a test day at Rhode Island. High speed track with downforce. He drove that car for the first time for a good 20, 30 minutes. And he got out of the car and we’re all watching him talk. And he’s trying to be cool. Yeah, well, this, that, and you can see a little inside and I said, pretty great.

And he goes, So same thing for him. Once you get that experience of a prototype that seems to defy the laws of physics because the aerodynamics and the speed, it’s nothing like it. Well, that said, what’s next for Dave Murray? When I was driving back in the mid 2000s and 2009 10, you know, driving is going to come to an end at some point.

60, my wife said, you better get a job. And I said, who’s going to hire a 60 year old pro racer. So I would always look for an opportunity. Finally, 2009 at one of the events, I was coaching a gentleman driver at one of the group 52 events [00:49:00] and said, you know, what’s a good format. And somebody that was running another program asked me what about it.

So we joined together and started David Murray track days. And so we started off just doing events where we had open track, which is something nobody else does. Whereas no sessions, no groups, just open track, go out when you want, you’re not gonna drive seven hours a day, but if you have more drivers, you can, but at least it gives you the opportunity to go out when you want, as long as you want for as often as you want.

So we started that and then we started realizing that it would be beneficial to some of the series if. They could test their cars, so we do that four times a year before the PCA club races. We do it at Sebring, VIR Atlanta, and Road America, and then we do it 15 other times in front of the IMSA races or SRO or Porsche Sprint.

It’s usually a couple weeks out. And they have a chance to bring their cars, saves them money. They don’t have to pay for the track rental by themselves. And then we limit the car account. So we get good quality testing and try to group the cars together. So we’ve been doing that for 16 years and we’ve got 19 events next year.

We had 15 this year with 19 next year. So it’s been a great continuation for me. [00:50:00] Because this is my family and my world. How can I do that to continue to go along? And with my son racing, it keeps me engaged and keeps those relationships going that I see people, you know, you’ll see people that you haven’t seen that live in Atlanta.

I’ve never seen them in Atlanta, but I’ve seen them. I’ve seen the racetrack thousands of times around the world. So it’s a great family and I’m glad I don’t have to part ways with that. I can continue on that and be involved and be engaged with it and help out, give folks something back.

Crew Chief Eric: Well, as we close out here, I want to pass the microphone to our ACO USA ambassadors tonight.

May Lee and William Withers.

May Lee: Well, since David Lowe couldn’t be here, I want to thank you, David, for joining us and thank Eric again for hosting another great evening with a legend. We really appreciate all of your time and sharing your stories with us.

William Withers: I’d like to thank you for coming by the booth at Road Atlanta last year and this year.

I know I missed you this year, and I’m sorry about that. I was running around doing a couple other things, but we’d like to thank you for everything you do for the club, and it’s just much appreciated.

David Murry: I don’t know. I appreciate you guys, what you’re [00:51:00] doing for ACO for the U. S. We’ve needed this for so long and it’s great to see David and have you guys all take this and create opportunities for people in the U.

S. That like me may not even know anything about ACO or Lamar or anything else until they’re exposed to it. So it’s really great to see this in the U. S. And I think there’s so many people are going to benefit from it. and enjoy it. I know you have a lot of functions, the boat function. That’s like, there’s so many things that can do in the watch parties for Le Mans.

I’m looking forward to seeing a lot of new fans for Le Mans.

William Withers: And we’re looking forward to working with you in the future for sure. Thank you. Thank you again.

Crew Chief Eric: And on behalf of everyone here and those listening at home, thank you Dave for sharing your story with us. Since 1981, when he first stepped into a Formula Ford, David Murray built a reputation as a fast and consistent driver and has become known as one of the good guys in the often wacky world of motorsports.

And he has continued racing for various brands all around the world. In 2009, late in his successful driving career, David started David Murray Track Days. This continues to be his primary focus today. And you can learn [00:52:00] from one of our legends of Le Mans with personalized instruction, interactive class time, evaluation of in car footage and or data, along with car setups and other ways to maximize your driving potential.

So if you want to learn more, be sure to check out David Murray Track Days at www. davidmurraytrackdays. com. DavidMurray. com. That’s David M U R R Y. com for more information. So we hope you enjoyed this presentation and look forward to more Evening with the Legends throughout the season. And with that, David, I can’t thank you enough for coming on and sharing your story with us, sharing your evening with us and telling us all these war stories of your multiple attempts at Le Mans and again, clinching that podium there at your last attempt.

So congratulations and keep up the good work. Thank you,

David Murry: Eric. Appreciate you doing this. And I know your library is going to be. Growing and a pretty neat to have this forever. Thank you for doing it.

Crew Chief Eric: This episode has been brought to you by the Automobile Club of the West and the [00:53:00] ACO USA. From the awe inspiring speed demons that have graced the track to the courageous drivers who have pushed the limits of endurance, the 24 Hours of Le Mans is an automotive spectacle like no other. For over a century, the 24 Hours of Le Mans has urged manufacturers to innovate for the benefit of future motorists.

And it’s a celebration of the relentless pursuit of speed and excellence in the world of motorsports. To learn more about or to become a member of the ACO USA, look no further than www. lemans. org, click on English in the upper right corner, and then click on the ACO members tab for club offers. Once you’ve become a member, you can follow all the action on the Facebook group ACOUSAMEMBERSCLUB and become part of the legend with future Evening with the Legend meetups.

This episode has been brought to you by Grand Touring Motorsports as part of our Motoring Podcast Network. [00:54:00] For more episodes like this, tune in each week for more exciting and educational content from organizations like the Exotic Car Marketplace, The Motoring Historian, Brake Fix, and many others. If you’d like to support Grand Touring Motorsports and the Motoring Podcast Network, sign up for one of our many sponsorship tiers at www.

patreon. com forward slash GT Motorsports. Please note that the content, opinions, and materials presented and expressed in this episode are those of its creator, and this episode has been published with their consent. If you have any inquiries about this program, please contact the creators of this episode via email or social media as mentioned in the episode.

Skip ahead if you must… Here’s the highlights from this episode you might be most interested in and their corresponding time stamps.

• 00:00 Introduction to Evening with a Legend
• 01:31 David Murry’s Early Racing Career
• 02:45 Journey to Le Mans
• 04:00 First IMSA Race and Sponsorship Struggles
• 05:11 Breakthrough with Porsche
• 06:27 Testing and Qualifying for Le Mans
• 08:09 First Le Mans Experience
• 09:52 Challenges and Lessons at Le Mans
• 22:19 Return to Le Mans in 2000
• 25:55 The Art of Racing: GT vs LP Drivers
• 27:31 The Rise of Audi at Le Mans
• 30:43 Challenges and Triumphs: Racing in the Rain
• 31:50 Reflections on Racing with Andy Pilgrim
• 33:48 The Evolution of Racing Technology
• 36:49 A Decade Later: Returning to Le Mans
• 45:09 The Future of Racing and Personal Endeavors