Covering Patrick Dempsey’s racing career was good fun when he entered the sport in the late 2000s. To many of his fans, Dempsey was a lead actor in “Grey’s Anatomy,” one of the most popular TV shows at the time, but there was a different side to Dempsey as he embarked on a secondary career in the former Grand Am Rolex Series sports car championship.
Grand Am was renowned for its great racing, but it wasn’t burdened with immense popularity, and that meant Dempsey — despite serving as the top name at each event — wasn’t constantly mobbed by fans. It would change a few years later as he moved up to the American Le Mans Series and then went on to race on the sport’s biggest stage at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, but in those early Grand Am days, Dempsey could leave the celebrity behind and be seen and treated as just another racer by his teammates and rivals.
The relative simplicity and purity of those times would be gradually surrendered as full-time racing in the ALMS and FIA World Endurance Championship — in teams he either owned or co-owned — dominated Dempsey’s life with constant domestic and international travel, all while filling the rest of his time with TV and movie projects.
The untenable pace and demands came to a head after the 2015 season; having achieved most of his dreams and goals in racing, Dempsey decided to step away from the sport and focus on his family and first career.
And like most racers, the passion that led him to climb inside the cockpit wouldn’t remain extinguished. Signed to play racing legend Piero Taruffi in Michael Mann’s film Ferrari, it was the driving that led Dempsey back to active competition in 2024 with American ace Patrick Long in the Porsche Endurance Challenge, which is the subject of the new documentary “Destined to drive: Patrick Dempsey’s return to racing,” which airs Sunday on FOX Sports 1 after the NASCAR Cup race.
MARSHALL PRUETT: With the release of the new documentary chronicling your return to the driver’s seat, it’s been interesting to see fans posting reactions to it, saying, “I got into sports car racing because of Patrick Dempsey!” That must be an interesting thing to experience.
PATRICK DEMPSEY: It’s fascinating, and I think it’s really cool because we’ve seen this resurgence — you’ve seen Drive to Survive turn everything upside down for motorsport and give it a platform where people are like, “Oh, wait, there’s humanity behind this. It’s not just some cars running around.”
People are getting to know the personalities. I wasn’t sure what the reaction would be, but it’s nice that it’s positive.
PRUETT: My father was an amateur racer so I grew up with this as my passion and it became my profession since my teens. And I love that is also a part of your arc in racing, even though you didn’t get into it actively until later in life. You had already achieved incredible success in your profession, but you discovered racing, and you loved it, and you drove to considerable success behind the wheel. Then you stepped away for a bit only to come back and say, “OK, this damn thing is in my veins.” Tell me about that side, because I think it resonates with anybody who chases a passion in life.
DEMPSEY: My father was a really big racing fan, too. He was a team owner at one point. You know, living in the South — short track, he’d have a car, he had a bar, and then he would advertise his bar with his car. Some of my earliest memories were listening to the Indy 500 in the front seat of the station wagon because they would delay the telecast in those days, back in the ’70s, so I would listen to the race. And then we’d all gather around and watch the 500 together. That was at the height of the 500 where it was the race of the year.
And then we would watch the Formula 1 races. Monaco usually had a good televised race in the ’70s. And then, of course, you had Daytona and all those things. So, I grew up with racing.
And certainly, I love ski racing. Ski racing for me was what I really wanted to do as a kid, and I kind of fell into acting accidentally. What’s really interesting is I’ve got this program coming up to race with Ingemar Stenmark in Europe this year, who was my idol. He was my childhood idol. Until Mikaela Shiffrin came along, he was like the best skier of all time. So, I always loved racing and competing. Then I got into acting, but I always followed racing.
It was when I first started dating my wife that she gave me a three-day Skip Barber Driving School certificate. That opened Pandora’s box. But I was always watching races at that time, and in the ’90s, you could get the Speed Channel. You’re watching all the races and I remember going to a charity event in Atlanta where I met Don and Dan Panoz. Next thing, I’m bidding on a hot lap at Petit Le Mans. That really kind of got me hooked. I did the racing school, and then just moved up in that Panoz racing series and it just took off.
My goal was always to get to Le Mans. That was the goal: to have enough experience to be competitive and to work my way up. And then finally, in 2015, it all kind of came together. We got a good ride, a full ride with Porsche. Before that, we went in 2009 with Ferrari. And then ’13, ’14, to ’15 with Porsche.
And then in ’15 it was just… you know, having a family, having the career, trying to balance it all, something’s gonna get sacrificed, and I was just gone too much, and I finally achieved my original goals. I remember when we were on the verge of winning our first race in Japan, and I felt the energy shift where it was like, “OK, it’s time to go back home.”
I needed to be present for my kids and for my wife and be home because I was just gone all the time. It had taken such a big toll, and I was exhausted. I didn’t do anything for a while. Then the Ferrari project came about, and that reignited everything again.
PRUETT: Having to focus on family and work — that’s something everybody can relate to. But talk about what it was like when, after setting racing aside, you got that competitive tickle again. How did that inner conversation go? Because not every person is successful in coming back to racing.
DEMPSEY: Yeah, it was more psychological. My son was like, “Dad, you know, you should get back into it. You miss it so much. You talk about it. We watch it.” We’d been watching racing and I was taking him karting and then I talked to my wife, saying, “You know, it’s really important for me in my work with Tag Heuer as an ambassador, we do a lot of driving events and I’m going to the track, but I’m not having fun if I’m just sitting trackside. I’d like to do a little bit of racing, just to get the muscle back and toned up.” That’s how it began.
And then I remember calling Michael Mann, because I’d been tracking the Ferrari movie for 10 years, and that was always the period I wanted to make a movie like The Limit — you remember that book? I love that period in the ’50s. To me, it’s the most romantic period. So, I reached out to Michael. He and I had always run into each other at different car events, and he said, “Come on in. Let’s have a conversation because you’re too old to play everything. But what about this (Piero Taruffi) role?” And I said, “Yeah, I’ll do it. I’ll definitely do it.”
Then the stunt coordinator reached out to me and said, “Hey, you want to do your driving yourself? You OK with that?” I’m like, “Yeah, absolutely.” We started doing some testing and then I just… there was something that changed in my brain chemistry where I woke up and there was a different level of consciousness. You know what I’m talking about? There was just…there was an awareness. I felt like I had just emerged from a deep coma and was back into a whole other mindset.
Marino Franchitti was over there, and we were all testing together, and he’s like, “Your lap times are getting quicker.” I go, “I know, I’m starting to push a little bit more.” We started getting into it, and I just kept pounding around. I’d come in, we would put some fuel in the car — we had a Caterham at the time — and that’s how it got started.
At the same time, I was talking to TAG Heuer and Porsche because of their collaboration, which was great. They were like, “Let’s do the Carrera Panamericana together,” which is one of those epic races I’d read so much about. I reached out to John Wright and was like, “John, we need to get some testing in because we’re going to be on some really dangerous roads, and I need to make sure that I can get my skills up and get back into this.”
You know, you get rusty quickly. I think it was the second day at the test at Road America where I thought, “Wow, I’ve got to do this. I really want to do this.”
It felt great. I really missed the camaraderie of racing and it’s the place where I feel the most at home. I’ve never felt completely at home or at ease in Hollywood. I’ve always felt kind of like an outsider, like I don’t quite belong, even though I’ve had success. It’s never been something that’s easy for me. But I think it gets back to the ski racing, and I remember racing with the Mahre brothers. Remember when the Mahre brothers were running their Mustang program? We would talk. We talked a lot about the similarities between skiing and car racing and the sort of visualization that goes with that.
Next, I’m thinking, “OK, what kind of package can we put together?” I asked Patrick Long, “What do you think is the best way to re-enter this in a fun way, to get back up to speed?” and he goes, “I think we should do the GT4 series.” That’s how it started.
PRUETT: I love that you’re doing this again with Pat Long.
DEMPSEY: He’s just a remarkable guy. You know, he’s just so much fun to be around and we’ve had some incredible experiences together. Traveling around the world with him, in the WEC with Porsche, working within that organization, suddenly, I’m like a factory driver. I was treated respectfully. They were very analytical: “OK, what’s working? What do we need to work on? OK, let’s put a plan together.”
It was the most nurturing environment I’d ever been in. I mean, it’s a tough environment, with a lot of pressure, but it went to a whole other level of professionalism.
PRUETT: With the new documentary, folks are going to see this camaraderie that you mentioned, which is huge part of why we do this. We love the cars, we love the tech and the speed and all those things. But ultimately, this isn’t just you out on the range by yourself, it’s you and this collection of people determining what you can achieve together.
DEMPSEY: There’s something about the camaraderie and fellowship. Look, these cars are a lot safer than what Taruffi was running in the ’50s or even back in the early ’80s with Paul Newman, but still, when you’re out there and you’re competing with people, there’s a deep psychological bond that you develop with your fellow competitors and your engineer and your team. You know, it’s a scary place before you get in the car. Once you’re in the car, it’s all fine, but all that emotion that comes up before — you have to learn how to manage that. And there’s, it’s hard to put into words — I hate to say you go into battle, but you really do. And it’s all on you.
I think you see this with a lot of professional athletes. It’s that camaraderie, that team effort: everything has to click. You need to have the right chemistry. Otherwise, it just doesn’t work. Everything has to come together. That’s the beauty of it, and to me that’s been the greatest thing that I’ve taken away from the sport. To be able, once I got out of the car, to be really happy being present.
Present on the sideline for my kids in what they were doing, because they felt like, you know, what? I had a dream. I worked hard to get to that dream and realize it, and once I did, I was able to come back and be much more present as a husband and as a father, and just as a human being, I felt much better.
PRUETT: I know you’re not ready to announce everything you’re doing this year, driving-wise, but tell me about trying to continue to fit this in within the confines of the rest of your life, in 2025.
DEMPSEY: We’ve got some stuff. We’re working with Porsche, certainly, on 50 years with the Turbo. There’s a program we’re putting together on that side. We’ll also do some Porsche Cup races internationally. My boys are graduating in the next 10 weeks, so once I get through that, we’ll have a much better idea of what’s to come.
I’ll stay tuned up and ready to go into a much fuller season, end of this year, and then beginning into next year, because you’re still hustling. I mean, the cost since I got in — it’s just gone through the roof. And I’m also almost in my 60s, you know, I’m 59 years old. So I don’t want to suffer as much as I used to.
I really enjoy the Cup racing and getting two or three sprint races, and then the Endurance Series we did last year was a lot of fun for both Patrick and me. We did it for the sheer pleasure of it. And the best days, I think, were the test days. That’s when it’s really relaxed, it’s really fun, and the purity of racing is there, right?
It’s about you and the clock and what you can do, and then how you learn what’s the most that you can get out of yourself at that point. So, we had a lot of wins. I got in at the deep end very quickly, right? With a lot of visibility. So that was always very tough. And then for this, you know, we had to have the camera around because we needed to help with the sponsorship. You know, you’re always raising money in this part of the deal.
And thank God, [documentary producer] Bobby Akin came along and helped us put that package together. We got the car, and we got enough parts to get it going, but we still needed a little bit more money running-cost-wise, so we ended up putting that together. That’s how the documentary came about.
And one of the best things about doing this was seeing Patrick get back in the car. Seeing his competitive spirit come back, and being close to him and watching him, after having stepped away himself, come back for the first time and go, “Know what? I just love it.”
It’s for the sheer joy of being behind the wheel, and I think he discovered something new about himself in his love for racing that I think we all didn’t quite expect. You know, it’s nice.
PRUETT: Is there, call it a halfway point, where you can still be involved, still be very serious, but it doesn’t have to dominate every aspect of your life?
DEMPSEY: The thing is, it does, man, because the more you do it, the more you want it to. The biggest challenge was, we would have three days of great testing, we’d race, and then we’d have a break, and it’s like, “Oh, man,” because you know you’ve got to get back up to speed again. If you’re racing every day, or you’re always in the car, you know all that stuff is just instinctual. It’s that gearing-up process that’s the biggest challenge after these long breaks.
Ultimately, racing is an addiction, right? It’s a drug. It’s a high. You just love it. There’s nothing better. I haven’t done anything better than this. It’s the greatest.
