David Murry's productive season
Porsche driver David Murry talks about racing in 2004 and beyond
By Kate Shaw
Photos courtesy Juha Livonen and Margot Orenchuk
TORONTO, Canada (January 2, 2005) – For Porsche driver David Murry, the 2004 season in which he competed both in GARRA and the ALMS, was busy, fun and, occasionally, bittersweet. “In 2004 I learned all over again,” he said in our recent interview,” just how much fun racing is!” And what made the season so much fun? For the man who is known as “a driver for all classes”, the fun lay very much in being able to drive in three different classes, two different series and with three different teams – but in each case with the same team-mate: Craig Stanton. “It was a productive year,” he opined, “because the three teams and Craig were all supportive and positive – there was no negativity; and we not only had good chances to win, we did win! That’s what makes racing fun.”

The bittersweet part came, he said, because although the Petersen Motorsports/White Lightning Racing team did well in the 2004 ALMS GT [now GT2] class, for David the fact had to be faced that their six podium finishes were always behind the Alex Job Racing “factory” cars. While this was a very good finish for a privateer team, still, he says, “It was frustrating, because we didn’t get the first place trophy or first in the record book.” There is an unspoken but plainly heard intimation of a certain inevitability about this finish. Perhaps for this reason, David seems noticeably more enthusiastic about his season in the Grand-Am, which he feels is on the uptick compared to the ALMS.

“Momentum in racing swings back and forth,” said David, whose long career in racing has given him perspective, “and it seems that Grand American has the edge now. ALMS really does a great job of promoting the series and the entire show; but ALMS is expensive and difficult for a privateer team; it’s hard to keep up with, to have a chance to win, because of both the money and politics involved.”

Besides these differences, David believes that the GARRA policy of limiting the classes to only two is less confusing for the fans and leads to bigger fields in those two classes. “While the ALMS has done a good job by having the lights on the cars to tell who is where in the top three, the four classes makes it a little difficult for the fans to keep up with. Grand Am has taken care of both these difficulties -- money and the confusion – by only having two classes and by making sure, through rule parity, that it’s up to the drivers and teams as to who wins – not up to politics and money!”

Aside from these concerns, though, David enjoyed the 2004 racing season, and he particularly liked ending the season at Laguna Seca. “I’ve always loved racing at Laguna Seca,” he said. “The track has its own unique personality; it’s not only a world class venue but the surrounding area is such a great place to visit. I took my four-year-old son there this year for the first time, and we had a great time on the wharf playing around with the sea lions!” The race itself was a bit fraught for the Petersen/White Lightning team, although both Craig and David did everything they could. “I think Laguna was disappointing for us because we went straight back in the field during the race; our car just didn’t have the handling we’d had in the other races. We were disappointed when Craig qualified fourth in class; we’d hoped that we would be more competitive there.” And then there was the rain – a surprise cloudburst in the last hour of the race that made it necessary to think about tires – should they come in for wets or gamble that the rain would quickly be over and stay on the slicks? As it happened, they guessed wrong, but that is the way it goes in racing sometimes. The rain itself was not a bother, though. “If the track is just wet, but consistent, “David opined, “then it’s actually fun sometimes. But when you have no control because your car hits a puddle that you couldn’t even see, that’s when it stops being fun!”

Although he and Craig didn’t go with the Petersen/White Lightning team to Le Mans this year, David has driven there on three separate occasions and, although he’d never really thought of racing there, the experience opened his eyes. “Le Mans,” he said, “is the biggest sports car race in the world. There are over 300,000 fans in attendance, and all the factories are there – did the factories come because the fans come, or do the fans come because the factories are there? Did the chicken or the egg come first?” Le Mans is a lot different from driving at Daytona, although both are 24 hour races. “At Daytona there can be close to 100 cars on a track less than 4 miles long, so traffic plays a huge role in the race,” David explained. “At Le Mans the track is more than 7 miles long and you have less than half that number of cars, so you can drive Le Mans and rarely see another car.” Although no plans are being made for him to return to Le Mans at this time, David will be driving at the 24 Hours of Daytona with Synergy Racing in 2005.

About his plans for the 2005 season in the ALMS, David said that they had not been firmed up yet, but the two ‘iron men’ of the ALMS hope to continue together. Craig and David are among the fittest in the field, although David modestly defers to Craig in the fitness department – he thinks Craig could drive a 24 hour race by himself if the rules would allow it! They drove without the customary third man in both Sebring and the Petit Le Mans in 2004, after deciding that they didn’t need another driver “in the mix”. “We had some concern about what would happen if one of us got sick,” he said, a situation that actually arose with the Alex Job Racing team which was struck by a flu bug early in the Sebring weekend. “But we decided that it would work out all right if we had an experienced driver standing by in case anything happened. The physical aspect was never a concern for us.”

The two men, accompanied by David’s dog Jake, often train together; he admitted that Craig also has a dog, but the two dogs have not met. “We just need to bring our dogs to a track so they can play together,” David joked. “But as they haven’t met yet, perhaps we should just send them pictures of each other first!”

What’s up next for David Murry? Well, he does get a little time off. After attending the Porsche Motorsports Banquet in Germany last weekend, he now gets two weeks off and will take his wife and son to Utah for their first encounter with snow skis. “It should be a lot of fun,” he said. “After that we will be heading to Daytona for testing on January 7-9, 2005.”

With the end of the racing season and the building anticipation toward the 2005 season, you can bet that the talented and experienced David Murry will not only enjoy the change of pace but will be positively looking forward to getting back behind the wheel again and adding to the legend – both the legend of the Porsche marque and the legend of David Murry, truly a driver with class, for all classes.