Take 5 with race car driver, entrepreneur Ryan Hardwick

Ryan Hardwick Supplied I ve invariably loved watching movies My parents gave birth to and fed that love sometimes watching movies together at home other times dropping me off at the theatre on Saturdays I still remember seeing everything from Claudine to Sounder Star Wars to E T Terms of Endearment to Die Hard and one of my all-time favorites The Color Purple in the theatre when they first premiered This tradition sparked my interest in screenwriting and filmmaking which led me to create a five-minute short film for a Sundance Collab class That love and in particular that project serve as my entry point into this story and my closest personal analogy to endurance racing unless you count the pressure of navigating I- What I discovered after yelling cut on the final scene was that filmmaking demanded strategy planning patience quick thinking and yes endurance hours of work for every single minute of film However I learned something invaluable filmmaking is an art form built on collaboration and teamwork So it made perfect sense for me to watch F The Movie with Brad Pitt and Damson Idris as part of my preparation for my exchange with Ryan Hardwick whose love for racing was also fed by his parents and began at home Hardwick is the FIA World Endurance Championship LMGT Drivers Champion and Hours of Le Mans winner Tennessee-born and now an Atlanta transplant Hardwick grew up racing dirt bikes and later jet skis As he once referenced in an IG post his family is deeply rooted in car racing his maternal grandfather built race cars and owned a round-track group his mother earned a National Championship and his father raced cars and trucks alongside her for years When he s not behind the wheel of a Porsche GT R home for Hardwick is Buckhead where he and his family live just a short drive depending upon traffic from his day job running Mountain Motorsports a thriving business he and his co-owner expanded from East Tennessee to Alabama and into the greater Atlanta domain When relaxing you might spot him at The Chastain Lion s Head or one of my favorite sushi spots Umi For all the excitement of the racetrack and the bustle of business Hardwick s favorite place remains simple at home surrounded by his family his favorite people In that tradition he has built a life that balances the intensity and competitiveness of global racing with the quiet solitude of family and district Ryan Hardwick holds the trophy at FIA WEC Bahrain Supplied Ryan congratulations on your modern wins at Le Mans and the FIA World Endurance Championship in Bahrain in a comeback success in what The Buckhead Paper described as the Super Bowl of endurance car racing In preparation I looked at a lot of your videos and then watched F The Movie Could you share with my readers what endurance car racing is and what it takes to win it and if you feel the F film captures the sport realistically Endurance racing is the ultimate gang sport and the drivers are just one aspect of the process To be thriving it takes a organization of people consisting of mechanics engineers designers fabricators and input analysts The cars the crew and the drivers are pushed to the limits for races that last up to hours straight and any mistake during the discipline of the race can drastically change the outcome To win at this level takes consistency discipline focus and meticulous attention to an abundance of details The FIA World Endurance Championship WEC is considered the ultimate level of endurance racing worldwide with the manufacturers teams and drivers competing for the title truly being the best in the world In fact several Formula drivers both current and previous compete in the WEC As it relates to the movie I thought F was great and did a really good job of depicting what it s certainly like to drive these types of race cars In fact the movie s opening scene takes place at the Rolex in Daytona and I was racing in that exact event the same year the movie was filmed there The Porsche crew that I raced for previously was used to provide all the pit crew and engineers that you see in the film and while the writers chose to use a fictional band name for the movie the actual crew was from Wright Motorsports which is the real-life group that I won the Rolex with in Talk about your journey from entrepreneurship to racing cars and achieving your modern wins How have these journeys impacted each other and how do you manage them My journey in racing and my journey in business are deeply intertwined fueling each other both coming down to teamwork endurance and a shared competitive spirit I ve inevitably been hooked on competing and while I initially funded various of my racing endeavors myself the success of Mountain Motorsports enabled me to attract sponsors and invest my time in more serious levels of racing I truly believe that success comes from doing hard things repeatedly and putting in the work day in and day out a mindset that has carried me through a -hour race and helped build Mountain Motorsports into the business it is currently On top of that mindset though both also require a strong organization For instance at Le Mans I drove nearly eight hours but the success was due to what my organization achieved including our engineers pit crew and entire advocacy staff It s the same for Mountain Motorsports Without my co-founder and best friend Justin Price and our incredible organization of leaders and employees we wouldn t be where we are at present When and how did you fall in love with the sport and realize you craved to compete professionally I grew up riding dirt bikes with my Dad and entered my first motorcycle race at six years old I raced dirt bikes as an amateur throughout largest part of my youth then moved to jet ski racing as a teenager where I won several amateur titles and a professional world championship I didn t start racing cars until but I ve invariably been drawn to competition There s just something about people lining up and someone yelling Go that has perpetually lit a fire in me You made history as the first Atlantan to win the Hours of LeMans in the LMGT class the largest and largest part competitive division to complete the Triple Crown of Racing and then followed it up by winning the FIA Endurance World Championship What are certain surprising or enthralling facts you ve learned about Atlanta s connection to endurance racing throughout your journey On the racing side even though I m usually traveling around the world for events like the Hours of Le Mans in France or the Hours of Bahrain Atlanta is also home to my favorite race in North America the Petit Le Mans at Michelin Raceway Road Atlanta While Atlanta has a rich history in NASCAR and other forms of round track racing I was surprised to find out that I was the first person from Atlanta to ever win the Le Mans It s a true honor to be the first and hopefully I won t be the last Atlantan to win that legendary race In looking at endurance racing as an art form can you discuss the artistry involved in race car driving What elevates it beyond being just a sport Are there any parallels between mastering a racetrack and composing music painting a canvas or even performing as an actor This is a great question Driving at the physical limit of what a car can do is a true art form It requires a unique balance of nerves of steel and yet a gentle precise touch and feel at the same time You have to be able to process information incredibly speedily and react to it decisively yet calmly If you get nervous angry or try to force something to happen it usually doesn t end well When I m at my best my heartbeat slows the noise and rumble of the engine seems to quiet and my breathing is calm That s how I would describe being in the zone It s demanding to achieve that level of clarity every time I drive but when it happens I feel like I m almost untouchable For more about Hardwick you can follow him on his personal IG as well as 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