Rennsport Reunion Legends: Vol. 2

Atlanta. At Rennsport Reunion, we celebrate the stories and accomplishments of legendary drivers that gave their all for Porsche. Each week leading up to the event, we will showcase drivers and share their stories. These are the heroes of Rennsport Reunion 7 for the week of July 28: Jörg Bergmeister, Kevin Buckler, Jim Busby, Andrew Davis, David Donohue, Romain Dumas.

Jörg Bergmeister

Jörg Bergmeister became one of the most popular Porsche factory drivers when his storming style came to North America in the early years of this century. One of the most successful sports car drivers of recent times, he’s recorded wins at all the major endurance races: Le Mans, Daytona, Sebring, Nürburgring, Petit Le Mans and Spa-Francorchamps. Today, he is a Porsche brand ambassador and 911 development driver becoming the face of the latest GT cars from the marque.

Early championship wins with Porsche came in 2000 in the Carrera Cup Germany and in 2001 in the Porsche Pirelli Supercup. Following this success, he became a Porsche factory driver in 2002 and achieved a GT class win at the 24 Hours of Daytona with The Racer’s Group in a Porsche 911 GT3 RS, as well as an overall victory at Daytona the following year. During his time as works driver, Bergmeister won an incredible five consecutive Petit Le Mans. His first Le Mans victory came in the GT class at the 2004 24 Hours of Le Mans marking his first drive with long time teammate and Porsche Rennsport Reunion 7 co-Grand Marshall, Patrick Long.

2006 was a highlight year for Bergmeister; he became the first driver to ever win both the Grand-Am Series and the American Le Mans Series championships in the same year. In addition, Bergmeister won the ALMS title a record-breaking total of five times.

The later years of his racing career included numerous podium finishes in the World Endurance Championship and IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship. A second Le Mans victory came in 2019, this time in the GTE-Am class with the Project 1 Porsche 911 RSR.

Kevin Buckler

Kevin Buckler is the founder and CEO of The Racer’s Group (TRG), as well as being a talented race car driver himself. TRG began in 1992 as a Porsche Club Racing team but has grown into a truly successful professional sports car (and NASCAR) race team. In 1995, Buckler took the win in his first professional race start in the TRG Porsche 911. A wide variety of competitive races followed from 1995 through 2002, but it was in 2002 that TRG began to make history.

Factory backing from Porsche in 2002 propelled TRG to higher levels of success. A class win at the 24 Hours of Daytona earned the team an invitation to the 24 Hours of Le Mans, where their Porsche 911 GT3 RS, piloted by Buckler alongside Porsche works drivers Timo Bernhard and Lucas Luhr, won the race in their class on the first attempt—an extremely rare feat. To top off an incredible year of racing, Buckler was awarded the prestigious Porsche Cup. As if 2002 hadn’t been special enough for TRG, they surpassed their achievement of a GT class win at the 24 Hours of Daytona by securing an overall victory at the 2003 race—beating even the newly-introduced Daytona Prototype cars.

Buckler led TRG to back-to-back Grand-Am Rolex GT Championships in 2005 and 2006 – including the elusive triple crown in 2006: the Drivers’, Teams’ and Manufacturers’ Championships titles. After taking two more 24 Hours of Daytona wins in 2009 and 2011, with the 997-generation Porsche 911 GT3 Cup, TRG became the winningest team in Grand-Am Rolex Series history.

Jim Busby

Growing up near Pasadena Raceway, Jim Busby was exposed to racing from a very young age. This, undoubtedly, influenced his trajectory in life, leading him to become a highly respected member of multiple communities in the motorsport world. Hot rodding, drag racing, Bonneville speed racing, sports car racing; all are areas in which Jim Busby has had major influence and major success. 

In 1978, Busby raced the 24 Hours of Le Mans for Kremer Racing in a Porsche 935, taking the Group 5 class victory. He returned to Le Mans in 1982 with the BF Goodrich Porsche 924 GTR, finishing first in class—on street tires. This class win resulted in a Le Mans clean sweep for Porsche, securing first place overall and in every class.

He raced sports cars regularly during the ‘70s and ‘80s and made numerous podium finishes, including wins at the 1978 Mid-Ohio 250 Miles and 1981 Riverside 6 Hours, in a Porsche 935.

He also founded Jim Busby Racing, the team that took the Porsche 962 of Bob Wollek, Derek Bell and John Andretti to victory at the 1989 24 Hours of Daytona.

Andrew Davis

After a Skip Barber course—a high school graduation gift from his parents—Andrew Davis cut his teeth racing alongside his father in Sports Car Club of America Sports 2000 races. A move to open-wheel racing in the USF2000 championship followed soon after. It was during this time in F2000 that Davis took up an instructor role with the Porsche Sport Driving School.

In 2001, Davis made his debut in sports car racing in both the American Le Mans Series and the Grand-Am Rolex Series, where he achieved a second-in-class finish at the Petit Le Mans. He became a regular feature in both series thereafter, gaining experience and improving year on year. With three wins and nine podium finishes, Davis narrowly missed out on the 2008 GT Championship. Wins and podium finishes continued in 2009 and 2010, but it was in 2011, with the famous No. 59 Brumos Racing Porsche 911, that Davis experienced his first taste of championship success in the Grand-Am Rolex GT series with Leh Keen as his teammate.

Davis continued racing Porsche sports cars with Dempsey Racing and Alex Job Racing, securing a second-place finish with the latter at the 2015 24 Hours of Daytona. Also in 2015, he won the IMSA Sports Car Grand Sport Championship with Stevenson Racing. Today the University of Georgia graduate continues to race and coach on the Kellymoss with Riley team.

David Donohue

David Donohue has enjoyed a long and varied career racing in touring cars, NASCAR (stock cars and trucks), prototypes and GT cars. He completed his first full race season in 1994 in the IMSA Supercar Championship, taking the title with two wins and seven podiums. In 1996, he won the first race in the newly formed North American Super Touring Championship. The following year, Donohue posted six wins and 12 podiums to claim the championship title. In 1998, he took a GT2 class win at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Between the 1999 and 2000 seasons, he recorded six GTS class wins in the American Le Mans Series.

Donohue joined Brumos Racing in 2003 to drive their Porsche-powered car in the Daytona Prototype class, resulting in three wins, 10 podiums and second place in the championship. He became an integral member of the Brumos Racing team, competing in every Grand-Am Sports Car Series Daytona Prototype race from 2003 through 2009. The 2009 24 Hours of Daytona proved to be a historic event; with a margin of just 0.167 seconds, Donohue secured the overall victory in the Brumos Racing Riley Porsche – 40 years after his father, Porsche legend Mark Donohue, also won at Daytona.

Having entered each year since 2017, David Donohue has also achieved significant success with Porsche at the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb – five class podiums from six entries, including class wins in Time Attack 1 in 2018 (911 GT3 R), 2022 and 2023 (911 GT2 RS Clubsport).

In other duties for Porsche, Donohue drove the Carrera GT at Talladega Superspeedway to set a production car closed-course speed record of 196.301 mph in 2005. In 2014, he was appointed as Porsche 918 Client Relationship Manager for Porsche Cars North America.

Romain Dumas

French race car driver Romain Dumas is widely regarded as one of the best all-rounders in international motor racing. In his words, “Endurance races are my profession; hill climbs and rallies are my hobbies. All of it combined is my passion.”

In his day job, as he might put it, Dumas has a stunning record. Two overall wins at the 24 Hours of Le Mans: in 2010 with the Audi R15 TDI Plus and in 2016 with the Porsche 919 Hybrid – topping off the 2016 win by also securing the 2016 World Endurance Championship title. He achieved a GTE Pro class win at Le Mans in 2013 with the 911 RSR. Dumas is a true Le Mans veteran, having competed every year since 2001—very few drivers have had more entries at the iconic endurance race. Four overall wins at the 24 Hours of Nürburgring and two overall wins at the 24 Hours of Spa round out his impressive European endurance racing resume.

Stateside, Dumas has been crowned champion of the American Le Mans Series twice in the LMP2 category, has claimed wins at the 12 Hours of Sebring and the Petit Le Mans and scored three podium finishes at the 24 Hours of Daytona. In 2012, Dumas made his debut at Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, winning the open class and earning the award of Rookie of the Year. He became a dominant force at Pikes Peak, becoming overall winner in 2014, 2016, 2017 and 2018. His 2018 run in the Volkswagen I.D. R set a new Pikes Peak course record of 7 minutes 57.148 seconds. He also drove the I.D. R to a record time at the Goodwood Festival of Speed Hillclimb and an electric vehicle lap record at the Nürburgring Nordschleife. In 2023, he charged to the Pikes Peak Open class victory, second overall, in a Ford EV.