McMurry Continues Progress While Climbing Rungs On Sports Car Ladder - Speedway Digest

Matt McMurry entered the 2015 Cooper Tires Prototype Lites Powered by Mazda season as the senior driver on the reigning Lites 1 championship team, JDC Motorsports.

He has a full season of experience in the International Motor Sports Association (IMSA) Development Series under his belt, including spending the second half of 2014 with powerhouse JDC. He earned his first career Prototype Lites victory in the penultimate round of the 2014 season, in October at Road Atlanta.

He is combining his quest for the Lites 1 championship in Prototype Lites this season with racing and testing with Michael Shank Racing (MSR) in the Prototype class of the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship.

All heady stuff. Especially for someone who is just 17 years old and recently finished his junior year of high school in his hometown of Phoenix.

“I’m getting used to it,” McMurry said with a quiet laugh about his status as a young veteran. “That’s the way it’s always been. I’m the young guy.”

McMurry has been on the fast track to professional sports car racing for the past two years. He has competed in Cooper Tires Prototype Lites Powered by Mazda in 2014-15, the European Le Mans Series with Greaves Motorsport in 2014, the Rolex 24 At Daytona with MSR in 2015 and the 24 Hours of Le Mans in June 2014, becoming the youngest starter and finisher in that event’s history.

It’s been a whirlwind of a schedule and a life for McMurry, a high honor roll student at Brophy College Prepartory high school in Phoenix. He often switches seamlessly at the racetrack during the school year between debriefs with engineers over computer screens to cracking textbooks for studying.

“He’s got a lot on his plate with school work and staying at an extremely high level (in racing),” MSR team owner Michael Shank said. “One of the things I’ve noticed is that he’s an extremely intelligent kid.

“I forget about it (McMurry’s age) all the time, to be honest with you. He’s a really mature young guy, more mature than I am. I forget sometimes that he has other things in his life that he’s got to get through, such as high school. His grade point average is off the charts. He studies constantly. Everyone sees that.

“But you tend to forget. I’ll say, ‘I want to go test next weekend,’ and he’ll say, ‘OK, I’ll be there but I’ve got to check my schedule.’ That’s where it gets weird: ‘Oh, I forgot: You’ve got a senior prom next weekend or something like that.'”

The balance between racing and school becomes much easier for McMurry during the summer, when he can focus exclusively on racing. And his focus on North American racing, particularly in Prototype Lites, is a change from last year when his assault on Le Mans and the European Le Mans Series required numerous trans-Atlantic flights.

“It’s more stressful during the school year when you have to be working (on academics) when you’re not at the track,” McMurry said. “You’re not thinking about it when you’re in the car, but it’s still in your head, and that makes it a little bit harder. It’s definitely a lot easier. It feels easier, and it feels more fun. You’re less stressed out.”

Quick-bonding chemistry between McMurry and new JDC teammates Kenton Koch, 20, and Clark Toppe, 17, also has created good vibrations. The JDC trio is ruling the championship, with Koch leading with 78 points, Toppe second with 56 and McMurry third with 53.

Koch, Toppe and McMurry are the odds-on favorites to battle for the championship throughout the summer, but all three drivers continue to have a strong, easy rapport in the JDC section of the paddock.

“It works well,” McMurry said. “It’s not overly competitive. We’re not withholding data or sabotaging each other’s cars. We share all the data, and we look at each other’s video and help each other out with setup and work on what we all need to do to go faster.

“But on the track, of course, you’re not going to let them by because they’re your teammate.”

The quiet, polite McMurry admits he’s more at ease in and out of the car in his second season of Prototype Lites than as a rookie. He entered 2014 having competed in open-wheel cars at every track on the Lites schedule except for Canadian Tire Motorsport Park and Kansas Speedway, but there’s a big difference between turning laps and racing in an open-wheel car with less downforce and horsepower than the Élan chassis and Mazda engine used in Cooper Tires Prototype Lites Powered by Mazda.

“It’s mostly easier because I’m more comfortable in the car now,” McMurry said. “I was comfortable last year, but I know what the car wants and what it’s doing, and I can give better feedback. I understand better what the car is doing and how I need to drive the car and how it needs to handle to go fast.”

Racing a prototype last year at Le Mans and in the ELMS and testing and racing this year with MSR also has helped McMurry understand how the Cooper Tires Prototype Lites Powered by Mazda car translates to speed in prototype machinery.

McMurry recently tested with MSR at Watkins Glen and also tested with the team in May at NOLA Motorsports Park.

“The amount of downforce that the Lites cars have carries over the most,” McMurry said. “The Lites cars and prototypes are really different in terms of weight and how nimble they are. But all that bodywork (on the Lites car) makes a ton of downforce, which helps a lot at tracks like Watkins Glen when you’re in a prototype and have to go 125 mph around the Carousel after the Bus Stop, and knowing how to use the downforce and knowing to trust it when it doesn’t seem like it should work.”

Said Shank: “What’s cool to see is the progression. People see he is opening up. People see he is getting quicker. People see he is taking another step up in competitiveness.”

Rounds 5 and 6 of the Cooper Tires Prototype Lites Powered by Mazda season are scheduled for June 25-27 at Watkins Glen International in Watkins Glen, New York.

For more information about Cooper Tires Prototype Lites Powered by Mazda, visit www.imsa.com, follow hashtags #CTPL and #MRT24 @IMSA on Twitter or IMSA on Facebook.

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Adam Sinclair

NHRA, IHRA, Motocross and other forms of motorsports Staff writer
About Me: Adam has been a race fan since the first time he went through the tunnel under the Daytona International Speedway almost 30 years ago. He has had the privilege of travelling to races all across the state of Florida (as well as one race in Ohio), watching nearly everything with a motor compete for fame and glory, as well as participating in various racing schools to get the feel of what racecar drivers go through every week. Adam has spent the last three years covering motorsports for Examiner.com., where he had the opportunity to see the racing world from behind the scenes as well as the grandstands. He invites everyone to follow him on Twitter, Facebook, and Google Plus, and looks forward to sharing his enthusiasm for all things racing with the readers of SpeedwayDigest.com.Be sure to tune in for his weekly sports talk program, Thursday Night Thunder, where he discusses the latest in motorsports news with drivers, crew members, and fans. The show takes place every Thursday at 8:00 pm EST on the Speedway Digest Radio Network.