LE MANS, France — As the crow flies, it is little more than 5,000 miles from the hard scrabble desert of St. George, Utah to the plains of France where the famed Circuit du la Sarthe is located. But the journey that Drayson Team Manager Dale White took can only be measured by the strength of character found in one’s heart.

White remembers being the kid who got sand kicked in his face because his dreams were of fast cars, the Eiffel tower, and the 24 Hours of Le Mans rather than the SuperBowl, the World Series, or a slam dunk in the NBA finals.

 “I talked about going to France and they (the kids) just laughed ‘cause most kids in that small town had not left the county yet. I was just fascinated with that – it was just like a whole another world to me. That is all I talked about – it was all that I ever talked about,” he remembered.

His penchant for LeMans and car racing nearly drove his father nuts, according to White.  White recalls with a chuckle, “All my father (who was the service manager for a local automobile dealer) ever wanted me to do was NOT get in the car business.”

Trying to stay true to his father’s wishes White focused on engineering after high school, and was a program manager and engineer with EG&G Energy Measurements, where he began a career in the nuclear industry.

Today however, White has three Sebring class titles, two LeMans class titles, a passel of American Le Mans Series individual and series wins as well as a desert racing resume that would be the envy of even the likes of Mickey Thompson.

White’s journey to the heights of Le Mans began when he started dabbling in racing in his high school years, which included a dash of motocross before he was introduced to off-road racing in the form of the Mint 400. In the back of his mind an idea flashed to life – this is a sport where you can build a car without having to spend mega-bucks.

Working on a shoe-string budget, he went to the junk yard and found an old Chevy Blazer to develop into his first racer.

“I basically got a racing education and learned metal fabrication and welding in the process,” he recalls.

The Blazer got a third place in the Parker 400 – racing against a host of factory entries with budgets that were at least 10 times White’s. The Blazer actually won one race without even having a radio in the truck – with the help of the BF Goodrich team pitting for him.

White also worked on the chase crew of a team for a several years learning the business of racing from desert ground up, and was treated to a ride-along in one of the vehicles at the start of the Baja 1000 one year.

“I never gave up on the sports car racing and France, but at the time it just seemed unreachable,” he said.

Drayson racing, getting the early lead over the Aston Martin team at Sebring.

In 1989 White rekindled a relationship with an old friend, Las Vegas businessman Mike Petersen at an off road race. White was still working out of his garage – still winning trophies out of the garage – still racing on something of a shoestring budget. At the time, White was working on a “Prerunner” – a street-legal desert racer and Petersen got involved in racing this vehicle with him.

During their sojourns through the pucker bush of the desert, White and Petersen found that they shared a love of road racing. It was not long before they both had earned their SCCA licenses, purchased their first car and were rubbing paint with the best that the SCCA had to offer in the Trans-Am series.

For White the die was cast.

Although the Trans-Am series allowed the duo to cut their racing teeth, it was not long before they had purchased a Porsche RS3 as a result of a visit to the 24 Hours of Daytona.

They rolled through the pits at Daytona and each had the epiphany at nearly the same time “Why aren’t we here racing?” Two months later or so they had purchased the Porsche and raced at the 12 Hours of Sebring, sharing seat time with Charles Slater. After did a few more races they were hooked.

The team won the six hours of Watkins Glenn. White and Petersen dabbled in the IMSA series and while they were successful by many folks’ standards White realized that there was a difference between touching the upper echelon of the sport and becoming a regular winner.

“I just did not feel like I had ‘it’ in me,” he says. The ‘it’ being the ability to drive the car at ten-tenths for the duration of the race.

It was yet another epiphany for White. He retired from active driving and became a full-time team manager. It was not long before Petersen followed suit and they started hiring professional drivers.

The twosome did a deal with Porsche – they purchased and prepared the car and Porsche supplied the drivers. The team won the 24 hours of Daytona and then White and Petersen visited the 24 Hours of  Le Mans where there was another “aha” moment between them.

“Within about 30 seconds of being there we both said ‘We can do this’.” And that was the start of his realization of White’s dream that had been born in the Southern desert of Utah.

At the time White was managing a 75-person race shop business in Las Vegas that was focused on off-road racing, having won just won the Baja 1000. But White realized that this was not really what he wanted out of life.

“I really never got out of the office – and I wanted to go sports car racing – I needed to simplify my life in order to be successful in what I wanted to do,” he said.

In 2003 he was the team manager of the Porsche GT2 team that won both Sebring and Le Mans; they repeated the double again in 2004, and fell just short of the triple double in 2005 when they won at Sebring, and were within 20 seconds of the lead at LeMans when time ran out on the team.

A year earlier he had had another epiphany that would be as life-changing for him and his family as anything that had occurred during the preceding 30 years. He started to realize that the air quality of the Las Vegas valley was declining and began to do a little research into the issue.

“I hadn’t really given it much thought until then — my wife had had some concerns – we had been doing recycling and things like that – so I just started doing some research into that and I really was fascinated with the bio-fuels and different things that were going on in the automotive industry and just kind of graduated from there,” he said.

Success on the race track has allowed White to have the luxury – if that is what you want to call it – to give serious thought to other areas of interest, which now became the environment. White moved from Las Vegas to Bozeman, Mt and as the Team Manager of the Drayson Team has been able to integrate his car racing expertise with his interest in Green Technology, also a passion of team owner Paul Drayson.

In 2008 he was an adviser to the Drayson Team and in 2009 he stepped into the position as team manager full time for Drayson who at the time was the Minister of State for Science and Innovation for the United Kingdom with oversight of the national science research budget, innovation policy and space program.

Since the recent election in the UK Drayson has been “freed” of responsibilities to the government and can now focus all of his time towards driving.

At the start of the ’09 season the team, which also includes Jonny Cocker as the second driver, the team raced an Aston-Martin Vantage in the GT2 class before jumping to the LMP1 class for the last two races of the ALMS series (Road Atlanta and Laguna Seca).

For the record, this was not out of any disatisfaction with the Aston Martin, but more because both Drayson and White’s vision was to compete at the highest level of endurance racing. The Aston Martin Vantage GT2 car made significant progress during its tendure with the Drayson team, perhaps giving fans of the team a look at its potential in the Silverstone Le Mans race where the team played tag with the Ferrari team until going out of the race.

“Paul and I both enjoy the challenge of sports car racing and the GT2 class, but the LMP1 is where both of our dreams intersect. We made great progress with the car but now it is time for the Lola,” he said.

 In addition to the ALMS, Team Drayson also had two days of racing in Japan where again and have since added Emanuele Pirro as a third driver for longer races (Sebring, Monterey, Road Atlanta on the ALMS and Le Mans) and have three more races under their belt in the American Le Mans Series in the US in readiness of the 2010 24 hours of Le Mans.

In reality the team is talented but short on experience – as compared to the Audi and Peugeot teams, or even the Aston Martin P1 team. The addition of Pirro, the former Audi Team driver, is a major coup for the team and could pay major dividends for the team if it can solve some of the niggling issues that have besieged it over the last two years. 

For White this means suffering through the teething pains while the team grows into the new car – and while White dials in the car. The Lola engineering has been a great aid to the Drayson team as they have virtually tons of engineering information on all areas of car set-up. It has certainly shortened the development cycle for the car.

Still racing as a privateer has its challenges and the Drayson team has paid the price in spades, suffering several mechanical infarctions when they had the chance to challenge for podium positions, including posting the top qualifying time at the race in Tokyo and have the potential for a first win for the P1 car.

There is little reason to review the legion of crashes, off-road excursions, and mechanical failures that the team has endured over the last 10 months, except to quote the saint of endurance “What does not kill you will make you stronger.”

White and the Drayson Team finds itself one of several “privateers” challenging the vaunted Audi and Peugeot diesels as well as their friends from Aston Martin, and a bevy of other private LMP1 cars who are competing for the grand prize of endurance racing – the overall win at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.

There is an old rule of racing that postulates that cubic dollars trump cubic horsepower. But the question at the 2010 24 Hours of Le Mans is whether cubic dollars trumps the passion that burns bright within one’s heart.

Notes White, “It’s a pleasure to live our dreams and to do it with a great group and for people like Paul and Elspeth whose passion for this event runs as deep as mine.”

Knowing White’s history gives one a lesson in the focus of the team. White never gave up on his dream of racing (and winning at Le Mans). Finishing the whole 24 hours will be a first challenge for the team — without falling off the pace of the diesel teams. And if Team Drayson can to the last three hours of the race — it can then think about racing to the checkered flag.

White’s challenge is to level the playing field while still racing “Green” against some of the most well financed race teams in the world. It is a daunting challenge – but then you have to remember where the White began his career and the challenge does not seem so daunting.