http://auto-racing.speedtv.com/article/le-mans-dempsey-eyeing-lmp2-effort-for-2012/

Last weekend, Patrick Dempsey returned to Le Mans for a once-in-a-lifetime experience to drive Mazda’s 787B around Circuit de la Sarthe, part of the Japanese manufacturers’ 20th anniversary celebration of it historic win. But as it turns out, the multi-talented actor/racer wasn’t just in France to turn a few demonstration laps.

SPEED.com has learned that Dempsey is in the evaluation stages of a possible LMP2 program for next year’s 24-hour endurance classic, which could also include a full-season entry in the new FIA World Endurance Championship.

“I would love to come back here with Mazda,” Dempsey told SPEED.com. “That’s certainly a lot of what we were there to do [last weekend], to help bring that awareness and start to put certain elements together. Once you’ve [driven] Le Mans, you have to do it again. It was a life-changing experience in such a positive way for me.”

Dempsey made his Le Mans debut in 2009 at the wheel of an AF Corse-run Ferrari F430 GT with longtime team partner Joe Foster and Team Seattle’s Don Kitch Jr. The trio finished ninth in the GT2 category that year. It was that race that clearly ignited Dempsey’s ambitions of returning not only as a driver, but also with his own team.

Now with two full seasons under its belt in the GRAND-AM Rolex Sports Car Series, [3 rotor RX8] highlighted by a win last year and a podium finish in January’s Rolex 24 at Daytona, Dempsey Racing could be the latest American squad to mount an attack on the global sportscar championship.

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John Doonan, Is it a rotary for Le Mans?

Paul Lamar