The last time Mercedes-AMG Motorsport Customer Racing team driver Dylan Murry took on the IMSA competition, he was first to the checkered and led a top-three Mercedes-AMG GT4 sweep in the season-opening IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge race at Daytona International Speedway in January. The global shutdown since then of most major motorsports events in support of the fight against the novel coronavirus has kept Murry and his motorsports peers on the side lines, but the 19-year-old driver returns to competition in a virtual setting tonight for his IMSA iRacing Pro Series debut at virtual Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course.
Mid-Ohio would have been the real-world site of this weekend’s IMSA Sports Car Challenge event that has been rescheduled for the weekend of September 25 – 27. Instead, Murry and the 49 other drivers on the entry list will compete virtually at Mid-Ohio in the 90-minute iRacing event.
The third round of the six-race IMSA iRacing Pro Series championship, the Mid-Ohio race goes green at 6 p.m. EDT and streams live on iRacing’s Facebook page and YouTube and Twitch channels. The Torque Show, with Justin Bell and Tommy Kendall, will stream a pre-race show at 5 p.m. EDT on its Facebook page.
Like most young professional drivers, Murry has extensive online sim – short for simulator – and iRacing experience. Not surprisingly, his race car of choice is a Mercedes-AMG.
“I use iRacing mostly to prepare me for the world that I have not been able to race in yet in real life,” Murry said. “Most of the time, I test at tracks with cars that I think my next step in racing will be, or where my long-term goal is. One of them is the Mercedes-AMG GT3. I haven’t had the opportunity to drive that in real life yet, but iRacing is allowing me to get comfortable in it before I actually drive it. We have had major success in the Mercedes-AMG GT4 this past year with Riley Motorsports, and I would love to continue that success into one of their Mercedes-AMG GT3 cars,”
Co-driving the No. 35 Riley Motorsports Mercedes-AMG GT4 with full-season teammate Jim Cox and endurance race addition Jeroen Bleekemolen, Murry and his teammates extended a streak at Daytona that has seen them dominate four-hour events, the longest races for GT4 race cars on the IMSA schedule.
One race after securing their first Pilot Challenge podium with a second-place finish last May at Mid-Ohio, Murry and Cox joined Bleekemolen for a breakout victory a month later in the four-hour race at Watkins Glen International in New York.
Murry and Cox closed out the 2019 season with a GT4 class win in the four-hour Michelin Encore at Sebring in November and picked up right where they left off in January at Daytona with yet another four-hour race win.
With Watkins Glen targeted as IMSA’s hopeful return to real-life competition in late June, Murry and his teammates have a shot at a record extending fourth-straight four-hour race win. With most Pilot Challenge rounds two hours and 30 minutes in length, Daytona, The Glen and Encore at Sebring are the only four-hour races on the IMSA schedule.
For now, Murry keeps his skills sharp and race craft tuned through online racing and testing. Next up is tonight’s IMSA iRacing Pro Series debut at virtual Mid-Ohio.
“I am definitely on iRacing a little more now than I usually am,” Murry said. “I have a chance to drive my long-term goal cars like the Mercedes-AMG GT3 even more and can master those. It’s also a lot more fun than doing anything else around the house!”
Murry is among a small group of drivers on the iRacing entry list that has earned real-life success at Mid-Ohio. A day after last year’s Pilot Challenge second-place finish in the Mercedes-AMG GT4, Murry co-drove a Le Mans Prototype 3 (LMP3) car to an IMSA Prototype Challenge series win.
Bleekemolen, who will be among Murry’s IMSA iRacing competitors tonight, is one of just two multiple Mid-Ohio race winners entered in the online race. Bleekemolen’s wins came in the American Le Mans Series (ALMS) GTC class in 2010 and 2012.
Drivers in the IMSA iRacing Pro Series compete in one of four available digital versions of GT Le Mans (GTLM) cars. The GT Daytona (GTD) class digital Mercedes-AMG GT3 is not on the current vehicle list, but Murry and Bleekemolen will carry familiar IMSA race car numbers on their selected rides.
Murry runs his usual No. 35 while Bleekemolen carries No. 33, the number he and long-time teammate Ben Keating have taken to three-straight real-life GTD IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup titles in the No. 33 Riley Motorsports Mercedes-AMG GT3.