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Cars

Porsches are his passion

By MARTY CLEAR
Published February 18, 2005

TAMPA - Dave White has been married for more than 40 years, but his love affair with Porsches has been going on even longer.

Ever since he was a young man, he has lived and worked around Porsches. He fixes them, buys them, sells them, restores them, races them.

His two businesses, Dave White's Motor Sports and Dave White Racing, which share a facility on W Hillsborough Avenue near Tampa International Airport, are basically just glorified repair shops. But on any given day, White has more Porsches on hand - everything from run-of-the-mill cars that people with moderate incomes drive every day to half-million-dollar vintage racing cars - than most Porsche dealers' showrooms.

"I went to work for a dealership that sold Porsches, and one of my first jobs was installing the air conditioning unit on a Porsche," White said. "After I put the air conditioner in and drove that car, I was hooked. I went in and told my boss, "I think this is what I want to do, work on Porsches.' And I've never looked back. To me, the way they're built, the way they drive, the way they're engineered, there's nothing else that can match them."

White, 63, has lived in Tampa his whole life, but his reputation extends all across the United States. Dave White Racing currently is restoring cars for customers in California, Colorado and New York state.

When he takes time off from his businesses, it's usually because he's involved with racing Porsches. He used to run a Porsche racing school, and plenty of drivers on the circuit today are his former students. He still drives professionally himself, and he heads the Dave White Racing Team.

The racing team competes all across the country in an prestigious amateur circuit called the HSR, for Historic Sportscar Racing. The HSR has four divisions, for different types of cars. Last year, the Dave White Racing Team won the overall national championship in two of the four divisions.

"We would have won three of the four," White said. "On the last race of the year, all we had to do was beat one car, just one, and we would have won the championship. But a $25 ignition part blew six laps from the finish line. We lost the division by two points."

It's no small accomplishment even winning two of the four divisions. The HSR is huge. There's an HSR race somewhere in the country almost every month, and usually 200 to 300 cars compete.

"Our team's a little different," White said. "A lot of race teams own the cars, and they get sponsors and hire drivers. All of our drivers own their own cars individually, and I provide support. What I found is that there are a lot of people who can race and want to race, but they don't know how to do the other stuff - the logistics, the travel, the crewing. So that's what I provide."

White knows the business of racing a lot better than most people. He started racing at local tracks when he was still attending Hillsborough High School in the 1950s, and in 1960 he won his first race, at Sunshine Speedway in Pinellas County. He was one of the original drivers in IMSA (the International Motor Sports Association) when it was formed in 1964.

Since then, just as a driver, he figures he has raced at Sebring about 500 times, and he won a major race there in 1976. A couple of weeks ago he finished 14th out of 72 cars at Daytona. Walls and display cases in his office and waiting room are crammed with ribbons and trophies. One entire case is filled with trophies from 2004; soon he'll probably have to move them to make way for the 2005 trophies.

"I basically believe it's one of the hardest things you can do," White said of competitive racing. "People tend to not think of race drivers as athletes. But we are required to concentrate and make decisions while we're sitting in a 130-degree car. And it's not like a golf shot or a basketball shot. If you lose your concentration you can crash or cause somebody else to crash and someone gets killed. If you miss a basketball shot you just don't get any points."

Decades after he first race, Dave White is still in demand as a driver. He doesn't get quite as many calls as he used to. People often prefer younger drivers, and he understands that. But the people who know him, and know his work, still call on him when they need a talented and reliable driver.

"I found out early in my life that I could do it, and the more I did it the better I got," he said. "I'm still competing at 63, still winning championships. Not a lot of people can say that. I've been able to do what I love for my entire life, both as my profession and as a hobby. I'm a very lucky man."

[Last modified February 17, 2005, 10:50:08]