The year was 2000, and Larry Connor found himself with a genuine shot at winning the Formula Atlantic SCCA National Championship Runoffs at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. This was undoubtedly a welcome turn of events for Connor, given that the year prior he’d started the Runoffs race on the pole but trailed race leader Brian French by 1.5 seconds at the checker. In 2000, Connor held a 16-second advantage on French, allowing Connor to cruise to his first SCCA National Championship title. In 2001, Connor backed up his Runoffs win with another gold, returning in 2002 to clinch silver. While Connor hasn’t competed at the Runoffs since, he’s been quite busy. In fact, he’s currently on the International Space Station.
As part of Axiom Space’s Axiom Mission 1, Connor, along with Michael López-Alegría, Mark Path and Eytan Stibbe, lifted off from Kennedy Space Center at roughly 11:17 a.m. on Friday, April 8, 2022, aboard the SpaceX Crew Dragon capsule as part of the first private mission to the International Space Station. By 8:30 a.m. on Saturday, the capsule docked at the space station to begin its eight-day mission.
"I believe space is the last great frontier,” Connor said in a statement. “I’m thrilled and honored to be a part of this historic mission.”
This is far from Connor’s first extreme outing. Cincannati.com reported that Connor completed three dives in five days in May 2021 to the depths of the Mariana Trench. There, Connor gathered video footage and samples in the hadal zone, the area of the ocean below 20,000 feet. According to SpaceX, Connor has also won aerobatic flying competitions and summited Mount Kilimanjaro and Mount Rainier.
For his trip to space, Connor told WLWT, an NBC affiliate in Cincinnati, Ohio, “I'm closing in on 900 hours of training over the last six months.”
While in space, Connor will complete missions assisted by the Cleveland Clinic and Mayo Clinic, focusing on 21 experiments on the heart, spine, brain tissue and aging, Connor explained in the interview. “Being able to do experiments in space in microgravity is game changing,” Connor said. “And so, one of the requirements that we all had doing this was we want to do serious research that has real opportunities to make a difference.”
Connor’s Runoffs experience wasn’t his only time in motorsports. According to CheckeredFlag.co.uk, Connor began racing with the SCCA in 1982. From there, he moved to IMSA, competing in the Rolex 24 at Daytona in 2002 and ’05. In 2004, he raced in the 24 Hours of Le Mans. The 2010s saw him compete in various off-road series, including a dominating run in the SCORE International World Desert Championship, before returning to IMSA in 2020 for the Michelin Pilot Challenge during the Roar Before the Rolex 24.
A replay of Connor’s launch to the International Space Station atop the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket can be found at NASA’s YouTube channel, with blastoff coming a few minutes past the video’s one-hour mark. Mission updates and videos from Connor’s space mission are available on Axiom’s Mission Updates webpage.
Photo courtesy SpaceX – Larry Connor (left) and Mission Specialist Eytan Stibbe
