At six foot three and just twenty-eight years old, Robby, a New Jersey born BMW factory driver, has already taken the IMSA GS Champion in 2023, GT4 SprintX Champion in 2020, and the top 3 spots at Petit Le Mans.
“Being tall is a massive disadvantage,” he says. “The heavier you are, the more weight for the car, and the height thing makes it difficult for me to fit. I end up cramming myself into smaller cars than I'd really want to.”
What started as a pipe dream for Robby began when his football career ended with an injury at fourteen. “I wear a carbon fibre brace that keeps my ankle locked at 90 degrees now,” he says. “I can’t lift my foot up, so it just kind of hangs. I can run, but it’s not perfect.”
Winning The 24 Hours of Le Mans is the big dream for Robby. This is how it’s done…
Train
Enduro drivers burn thousands of calories over 24-hours and have to train for consistent stress.
“The stress on your body is similar to a low intensity jog, but for a very, very long time,” he says. “The cockpit temperatures can reach 140 degrees Fahrenheit, so you lose a tremendous amount of water. And then the cars are glued to the road, so you experience high G forces under breaking and cornering.”
If you fancy giving it a go for yourself, get your neck in check.
“I spend a lot of time strengthening my neck, which is a weird thing to do in the gym and people look at me a bit funny,” says Robby. “I need a pretty strong neck to sustain the weight of the helmet in a corner. When you do hundreds of laps at an average of two Gs, let's just say two times the weight of gravity on your head that has a helmet on it, it starts to really wear down your muscles. I also do a lot of cardio and strength training at high reps to fatigue the muscles over a long period of time.
Eat
First things first, if you’re throwing yourself around a track for hours on end, you’ll need to think drink.
“You have to arrive for a race very hydrated, otherwise you'll never catch up,” says Robby. “We have access to around a gallon of water in the car and obviously we get really hungry but you can't have too full of a stomach when you’re driving. I eat a lot of lean protein and clean carbs, like rice and chicken. Normally I eat right after I get out of the car. In an endurance race like the Daytona 24 Hours, you get around three to four hours rest, so the schedule of eating and sleeping is really important.”
Sleep
“During the race you try to sleep as much as you once you’ve eaten, showered and come down from all the adrenaline,” says Robby. “If you're lucky, you can get a couple hours during the race. I think the most sleep I've ever had is 3 hours over the whole 24. Normally you get 40 minutes of sleep at a time and then after the race, you either have this extra buzz of energy that results in a pretty good party, or you're just totally drained and dead.”
Repeat
If at first you don’t succeed and all that…
“In 2021 I signed my first contract with BMW,” says Robby. “This season, we’ve had a couple of races that should have been wins but turned out to not be.
“The leaders are a little far away, but we're just going to try to keep having good results and collecting good points.
“Le Mans is the crown jewel. I raced it once in 2021 in a GT and from a competitive perspective, it didn't go well. We had a failure in the car and we didn't finish the race. To win Le Mans would be the ultimate dream and behind that it has to be the Rolex 24 at Daytona. If you win that, you get a Rolex Daytona Engraved with that year of the race.”
How do you tell the time?
My everyday watch is a Breitling Chronomat 44, which was gifted to me and then I have a Cartier Tank, also gifted to me by my mentor Will Turner, who is the reason I’m sat in front of you today. The dream is to win that Rolex Daytona.
How do you get around off the track?
I'm very lucky to have an M8 Competition, Gran Coupe as a daily driver. It's a company car, one of the great perks of the job and yeah, I love it. It's a great everyday car.
Favourite food to cook?
I got into cooking because I struggled to find healthy food that tasted good. After I got injured playing football I literally gained a hundred pounds. At my heaviest I was 303 pounds. I make things like stuffed chicken breast or my favourite food, which is steak. I also cook eggs in every different way.
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