Kevin Jeannette, owner of Gunnar Porsche Racing, has a long history of involvement with Porsches. His start came over 35 years ago with a Porsche repair shop in Southern California. By 1977, Kevin was a Porsche racing mechanic, and devoted his full time to the sport, in 1978, forming Gunnar Porsche Racing.

Kevin began his racing career working with teams racing 934s and 935s, and eventually into 962s. He also started, what would turn into, a thriving restoration business, restoring vintage Porsche racing cars, for this new arena, for these retired racing cars. The early years included such teams as Cliff Kearns/Milt Minter in a 934, the Whittington Brothers at the Indianapolis 500 and in a 934, and 935s. Kevin went on to crew the Swap Shop Porsche 935, including the '83 Daytona 24 Hour winning car, with Foyt, Wolleck, Ballot-Lena, and Preston Henn. Kevin even built the engine for this winning car. It was in the early '80's that Andy Jensen started working with Kevin. They had first worked together on the Whittington Brothers Team.

Kevin moved on to Porsche 962s, with Swap Shop Racing, then Shelton Racing, Primus Racing, Bayside Racing, and Busby Racing. All the while, Gunnar Racing was making a name for itself, for restoring the most historic of Porsche's racing cars, including 917s, 908s (both long tail coupes, and short tail spyders), and 910s, all the way back to the earliest RSKs and Speedsters. The first car Kevin and Andy restored, was the 908 LH (long tail coupe) for the Porsche Museum.

Gunnar Racing, lead by Kevin's innovative thought process, built the first open topped prototype to run in the IMSA Camel GTP class, with the 966 Spyder. Gunnar Racing campaigned the car from 1991, until the final demise of the class, in 1993. The car, which wasn't always the fastest, compared with the Nissan and Toyota factory teams, always attracted attention. It also attracted great drivers, such as Derek and Justin Bell, Hurley Haywood, John Paul, Jr., Jay Cochran and David Donahue, and some Hollywood stars, such as Bobby Carradine, and Chad McQueen. This car was the fore runner of the current WSC/LMP cars that are the top class of professional sportscars, racing today.

Gunnar Racing took on a new amount of enthusiasm, in 1999, as Kevin's son Gunnar, who grew up in, and around, the cars his father was preparing, took to the sport, as a driver, at age 17. Since then, Gunnar Racing ran the 2000 Rolex 24, with Gunnar and Paul Newman driving, as well as the 24 Hours of Le Mans, where they finished 6th in the GT class, and Gunnar went into the record books, as the youngest driver ever to complete the race, at 18 years, and 33 days old. Gunnar drove with Panoz Motorsports as a test and endurance driver in 2002 and ran the full season with them in 2003.

Not to forget their roots in vintage Porsche's, Gunnar Racing is also very active in historic racing, keeping a whole stable of cars race ready, including some that Kevin and Andy worked on when they were being campaigned professionally. The current staff at Gunnar Racing includes: Kevin Jeannette, Andy Jensen, Bret Plazak, Paul Frederick, Sharon Jeannette, Gunnar Jeannette and Jesea Jeannette. It is doubtful that Kevin, Andy, and the entire Gunnar Racing staff are looking to retire anytime soon. There is far too much racing yet to experience!

<<Home>>