Lacking from Gunnar Jeannette’s résumé are victories in the most important races and championship in high-level racing.
Considering the breaks he has enjoyed and the connections from which he has benefited, those leave a noticeable hole, yet one a 28-year-old still has plenty of time to fill.
But take a look at what Jeannette’s résumé does include. Both professionally and personally those lines tell an intriguing tale of a man of both ambition and conviction, someone who got so much more out of life than most people could ever dream.
So we start at the beginning.
Jeannette grew up the son of the world’s leading restorer of Porsches. Kevin Jeannette never pushed Gunnar toward cars or racing, but he didn’t steer him away, either. By nature, Kevin’s business attracted wealthy clients, and by the age of 17, Gunnar was driving their cars.
“My first professional race was the 24 Hours of Daytona in 2000 with Paul Newman and Michael Brockman and Michael Lauer,” said Jeannette, who will compete with the American Le Mans Series this weekend at Road America. “Michael Lauer was a customer of my father’s . . . and my dad was able to get Paul involved because of family friends.”
Pretty cool, huh? Although the kid was far too young to know “actor Paul,” he became friends with “racer Paul” and saw how that Newman was all about winning.
Racer Paul continued after actor Paul retired; he competed professionally at 80 and died two years ago at 83.
“In 2004, I believe he was 79 years old, and I want to say he was about a second and a half off a 22-year-old kid, and that was not good enough for him,” Jeannette said. “He wanted to be right there on the pace. If I can even drive a normal vehicle when I’m 79, I’ll be pretty happy with that.”
At 18, Jeannette became the youngest finisher in the history of the 24 Hours of Le Mans. A year later, he finished second in his class at the historic race in France. That same year, Jeannette was hired by Don Panoz to test and then race in the ALMS, a huge boost in his career thanks to a connection made by Newman.
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