The school-boy racer honing his craft in a low-drag Le Mans Legend.
Dan Harper is a young man on a steep upwards trajectory. Late in 2017 he won a fiercely contested competition to become Porsche GB’s new Junior, the two-year Porsche driver programme in the Carrera Cup GB. Dan was just 16 when he won. Too young to hold a national driving license. And still, as he is today, in full-time education.
We meet Dan at the 76th Goodwood Members’ Meeting, where he’s been invited to take part in some exhibition drives. Dan has never been to Goodwood before, let alone driven its famously unforgiving 2.3-mile motor circuit. Unusually for mid-March, the mercury has dipped below zero and there is snow on the ground. The track is ice cold and incredibly greasy. And the car Dan will be driving today is the 845bhp one-of-a-kind Porsche 935/78, better known as Moby Dick. Nominal insurance value: £200 million. Actual value: priceless.
Dan came into motorsport at a very young age, finding his way in a variety of demanding disciplines from quad bikes and karts to rally cross and the highly regarded Ginetta Junior championship. The Ginettas run on road tyres, meaning Dan’s car control has already been fine-tuned the hard way, but nevertheless, the step up to a 911 GT3 Cup car, with 485bhp in a rear engine car, is a monumental leap to be making.
The pressure on the GB Junior is always sizeable, with the burden of expectation this year heaped on exceptionally young shoulders. Adding to Dan’s own particular pressure cooker is the knowledge that the two previous Juniors, Josh Webster and fellow Northern Irishman Charlie Eastwood, both won the Carrera Cup championship, but he has an impressively pragmatic, phlegmatic approach to the whole thing: “Everyone’s different and they had a bit more experience than I did when they won the scholarship. But Porsche Carrera Cup has always been a very competitive championship, so to be at the front is a massive achievement and that’s my aim. To be at the front and get a few podiums in my first year.”
And where does he see all this going? Dan talks with familiar resignation about the prohibitive costs of Formula 1, but then with a nod towards Moby Dick’s vast rear wing, reveals another ambition: “Any driver would love to experience Le Mans, so that’s something I’m living for. It’s a big goal, but it’s well within reach I think. It’s all about picking the right moments and getting the break, and for Porsche to recognise my talent now is a great feeling, and something I hope will progress.”
With a timely whirr and roar that causes the whole paddock to jump, Moby Dick’s forty-something flat-six bursts into life, filling our ears with the bygone sound track of analogue endurance racing. Bent over the engine bay, a mechanic feathers the throttle a few times before gradually building the revs.
Dan pulls on his helmet and we walk to the assembly area where an army of Group 5 cars bark and boom around us. There are Ferrari 512s, BMW 320 Turbos, a Lancia Beta Montecarlo and, surrounding Porsche GB’s own 924 GTP, a sea of privateer 935s. It’s a wall of noise and a dizzying sight, all giant front splitters and huge, almost comical wings. Yet Moby Dick stands head and shoulders above them all, more imposing, more remarkable, more intimidating.
With a few words from the mechanics and a friendly handshake, Moby Dick’s door is slammed shut and the 17-year-old school boy is alone with his thoughts. The session is under way in an instant and before he can ask how on earth this is happening the field is barrelling towards Madgwick, Dan at the front, feeling his way through alien H-pattern gearing and heavy clutch, working weighty, unassisted steering and contemplating those 845 horses on an ice-cold pre-war race track.
In the end, Dan’s sang froid and textbook racer’s self-confidence prove more than enough to see him through. Jumping out, there’s a beaming smile and some well-chosen words where a wall of expletives would have been totally justified. “It was an amazing experience,” he says, “on a fantastic track. Maybe not the best conditions as it’s still very cold and there’s a lot of oil down. But Moby Dick is such a beast. The actual 1978 Le Mans cars, and with 850 horsepower it’s almost double anything I’ve driven in the past. To be given the opportunity by Porsche to drive this monster is a real privilege.”
Like so many racers, the capacity to adapt, and quickly, seems to come easily to Dan. “At the start I was taking it very easy,” he explains, “just getting a feel for it all and building up a bit of confidence. Then I started to push a bit harder and by that stage I was in the zone. By the end I was loving it and didn’t want to come in. I could’ve gone around all night.”
Unfortunately for Dan, he has other obligations. The most pressing of which is the first flight back to Belfast in the morning. Followed by the last couple of lessons before lunch. But he’ll have quite a story to tell.