Rennsport Reunion Legends: Vol. 5

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 August 18: Leh Keen, Gérard Larrousse, Rudi Lins, Patrick Long, and Arie Luyendyk.

Leh Keen

A fixture of North American GT racing, Georgia-born Leh Keen has enjoyed a varied and successful career behind the wheel of several iterations of race-prepared 911 cars. Driving a 911 GT3 Cup (type 996), Keen took a maiden win and finished sixth overall in his first full season of the Grand American Rolex Sports Car Series in 2005. With four wins and seven podiums, he and co-driver Dirk Werner won their class in 2009, this time driving the 997 generation of Porsche 911 GT3 Cup car for Farnbacher Loles Racing.

The following year, Keen clinched victory in the GTC class at the Sebring 12 Hours and went on to win the Grand-Am Series GT championship with Brumos Racing in 2011 and the American Le Mans Series GTC Teams’ Championship with Alex Job Racing in 2012… all in Porsche race machines. No stranger to European racing, Keen has also driven a privateer Porsche in the infamous Nürburgring 24 Hours and has raced three times at Le Mans, his most recent GTE-Am class outing in 2016 with a Proton Racing-entered 911 RSR. Keen has also driven the type 991 Porsche 911 GT3 R in IMSA’s GTD class and raced the inaugural season of Porsche Carrera Cup North America in 2021.

Outside of racing, Keen set the Guinness World Record for the fastest speed achieved by a vehicle indoors driving a Porsche Taycan Turbo S, he set a speed of 106.2 mph at the New Orleans Convention Center in November 2020. That record stood until summer of 2023 when a purpose-built Formula E race car finally bettered the speed. The same year, he set a production EV lap record at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta in the Taycan Turbo S with a time of 1 minute 33.88 seconds. Outside of the sport, Keen is widely recognized for the creation of custom-built “safari” Porsche 911s.

Gérard Larrousse

Born in Lyon in 1940, Gérard Larrousse learned his craft on the rally stages of his native France. Success with Porsche would come fast and furious, with Larrousse winning the Tour de Corse for Porsche in 1969 and finding the podium in Monte Carlo in the 911.

Larrousse’s remarkable car control would see him graduate quickly to works drives in the Porsche prototype program and, with long-time friend and teammate Vic Elford, the genial Frenchman took overall victory at the 12 Hours of Sebring in 1971 aboard the Porsche 917 K and repeated the feat with a 908/03 at the Nürburgring 1000km later that same year.

At his home race of Le Mans, Larrousse came second overall and won the 3.0-litre class on debut for Porsche in 1969, sharing a 908 Langheck with works veteran Hans Herrmann. He placed second again in 1970 aboard the Martini Racing 917. Following rule changes that saw the 917 outlawed from the World Championship for Makes, the determined Frenchman would go on to win the 24 Hours twice in succession, driving Matra-Simca’s V12 prototype with fellow countryman Henri Pescarolo.

Rudi Lins

Following an apprenticeship as a mechanic, Austrian-born Rudi Lins began his career in cars at the Volkswagen/Porsche dealership owned by his parents. His first taste of motorsport came at the age of 20, driving a Porsche 356 C at the 1964 Axamer Lizum hillclimb. He was named Austrian national hillclimb champion three consecutive times from 1966-68 and went on to take the European Hillclimb Championship title in ’67 behind the wheel of a 906 Carrera 6. His fearlessness and precision on these tricky alpine ascents soon attracted the attention of the talent scouts from Zuffenhausen and Lins was drafted in as a Porsche works driver for the demanding endurance races of Le Mans and the Targa Florio.

In 1970 and 1971, Lins drove for factory-supported Martini Racing in several rounds of the International Championship of Makes. His best result was a podium finish at Le Mans in 1970, the 908 Langheck he shared with Helmut Marko only three laps down on the team’s much more powerful Group 5 917. Lins retired at the end of the ’71 season and returned to his former life as a Volkswagen and Porsche salesman, becoming Managing Partner of the Rudi Lins car dealership in Nüziders, a few miles from where he was born.

Patrick Long

Patrick Long’s close ties to the Porsche brand were forged at the start of the new millennium, when his precocious talent in single seaters came to the attention of Porsche motorsport scouts. Initially recruited as a Porsche Junior, Long found himself on the factory team roster soon after, competing initially for The Racer’s Group in the ALMS endurance series and the Rolex Sports Car Series from 2003. He joined with Petersen Motorsports/White Lightning Racing for his first appearance at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 2004. The occasion marked not only his first Le Mans appearance but his first of two victories at the French classic as well as the start of a long-time driver pairing with Jörg Bergmeister.

At home aboard every subsequent generation of 911 GT3 Cup, R and RSR, Long has claimed class wins for Porsche at the big four endurance classics, come second in class in IMSA and won the Blancpain GT World Challenge America.

A safe pair of hands, with a well-thumbed passport, Long has also tasted victory in the World Endurance Championship and at both the Bathurst 12 Hours and the Nürburgring 24 Hours.

A modern-day Porsche icon, Patrick Long is familiar to the US air-cooled scene as one of the founding fathers of the Luftgekühlt brand for lovers of air-cooled Porsches. A Porsche Brand Ambassador and competition advisor for Porsche Motorsport, Long also heads up North America’s young driver development program, sharing almost 20 years of international experience as a Porsche factory driver with the sports car stars of tomorrow. His decades of excellence and significance to the brand encouraged organizers to name the native Californian co-Grand Marshal of Porsche Rennsport Reunion 7 alongside Alwin Springer in 2023.

Arie Luyendyk

A single-seater specialist with a record-breaking turn of speed, Arie Luyendyk found nationwide fame in Indy car during the 1990s. Born in the Netherlands in 1953, Luyendyk arrived in the US in 1984 and promptly earned himself the nickname ‘The Flying Dutchman’. Winning the Super Vee Championship in his debut year, Luyendyk went on to be crowned Rookie of the Year in the 1985, both at the Indianapolis 500 and for the overall Indy Car season. In 1986, he achieved a second-place finish at the 24 Hours of Daytona, piloting a Porsche 962 alongside A.J. Foyt, Danny Sullivan and Preston Henn.

The Indianapolis Motor Speedway would prove to be Luyendyk’s happy place, the Dutch veteran winning the coveted 500-mile race for the first time in 1990 with a record average speed of 185.9 mph. It was an achievement that would go unbeaten for an astonishing 23 years. Luyendyk was also the Indy 500 pole-sitter in 1993, 1997 and 1999, retired from the lead three times and won the crown jewel event for a second time in 1997.

Following his retirement from racing, Luyendyk was inducted into the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Hall of Fame in 2009 and the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America in 2014. The last corner of his home circuit of Zandvoort, which hosts the Formula One World Championship’s Dutch Grand Prix, also bears his name.