They were the little and large of Porsche’s sportscar racing programme, so it’s little surprise that Jorg Bergmeister picks Patrick Long as his favourite team-mate.
They drove Porsches together, primarily in America, for eight seasons out of 10 between 2004 and 2014. That included a stint in Daytona Prototypes with Alex Job Racing, but they are more famously associated with racing GTs for Petersen/White Lightning and shared the 2004 Le Mans 24 Hours class victory with Sascha Maassen.
Bergmeister, 47, is also an overall Daytona 24 Hours winner as well as a two-time Le Mans 24 Hours GT class victor – his most recent in the World Endurance Championship's GTE Am division came as recently as 2019, when he also won the WEC title.
He was also one of the tallest drivers in the sportscar paddock at 6’4”. By contrast, “on a good day” Long quips, the Californian was 5’9”.
“You want someone quick, who pushes you, but you want someone who gets along with you – therefore I have to say Patrick,” says Bergmeister.
“We’re still friends, and to have that kind of relationship – with the person you need to be quicker than! – was always a lot of fun. We always had one goal, no ego involved.
“Winning Le Mans in 2004 together with White Lightning was perhaps the most painful victory I ever had. A week before the race, I had a bike crash. A car took me out, and I slid over concrete for quite some metres, so I had big [skin] patches of my arm and leg missing and it was not the most comfortable drive!
“I was beaten up, but we won Le Mans, and I was lucky that the Porsche doctor also looked after racing cyclists, so he knew road rash very well.”
His buddy Long is also a two-time Le Mans GT class winner, and a three-time American Le Mans Series GT conqueror.
“We were the odd couple,” says Long, 41. “He’s the smalltown German guy from a quiet town near Cologne and I’m coming from LA and rappin’ my lips!
“He taught me a tremendous amount about the technical side of racing – I loved every minute of driving with him, although there were times I was spending more time with him than my wife!”
