Olaf Lang

[tshih]

Anyone has more details of the death of a long time Porsche company executive? I ran across a recent comment saying that he had passed away recently in the 911 and Porsche World's last issue.

I had the priviledge of interacting with him during the last few visits to the Porsche Ludwigsburg site in Germany. He was a race car driver for Porsche in the 80's and drove the 917 to victory in the 1998 double celebration at Monterrey Historics Races.

He was a real enthusiast and will be very much missed as a friend and a Porschephile who promoted the marque.

Tom

[TRE Cup]

Olaf was a very nice person. He was brought up in San Luis Obispo here in California. I had met him at the Ludwigsburg office back in '83, where he was helpful to some friends doing research on RSRs. I saw him again at Laguna Seca, where he piloted the ,then awful purple, Sunoco 917. He had an incredible ear to ear grin after driving it.
I heard the sad news that he may have committed suicide. This would be tragic if it were true

[tshih]

I am shocked if the rumor is true. He was quite young and was widely admired. I am sadden to think someone like him would get depressed to that level. Are you certain it wasn't some kind of accident.

Tom

[Dr. Kananga]

Sorry for picking up such an old topic.

I am new to this board and this morning I stumbled over an old diaprojector and approximately 1 million of pictures.
Back in the days in the 80īs and 90īs my dad and his friends were real Porsche enthusiasts and racers and they took me with them everywhere they went. And they went somewhere almost every weekend. Nurburgring, Mountain Races, German Masters whatever, I think i saw it all.
So I just took this projector and started with those pictures on top of the big mountain of pictures.
1991
Well, this was one of the first I saw and it made me really sad.



It shows Olaf. He became a real friend of my dad and me. I learned so much from him about driving and driving Porsche, that I will always be grateful to call him a friend. And also his girlfriend Susi became a very good friend of all of us.
The most crazy memory I have with Olaf was a testride with a racecar in the middle of the night close to Nurburgring on public roads during rain on slicks.
I donīt know, but there must be much more pictures of him. So tonight there will be beer time in front of the projector to hopefully find more.

Because it made me so sad when I saw this pictures I googled his name and found this thread.
I just wanted to make sure that he is not forgotten and share this picture with you guys. We are very proud that we could call him a true friend.

[TRE Cup]

Thank you for sharing the memories. We look forward to seeing more pictures of this gentleman
Regards

[75 911s]

Sounds like there might be some really neat pictures on that reel. Please share if so inclined and RIP to Olaf.

[Mahler9th]

I met him briefly in passing at the '98 historics. He was hanging out at the Morsespeed camp... he drove Dave Morse's 917/30 that weekend. I was friendly with a friend of Dave's son, and the tech who took care of Dave's Porsches in the shop across the street from Jerry Woods' shop.

After Dave's unexpected death, that car was bought by Matt Drendel. Sadly he too suffered an unexpected death. Then Seinfield bough that car at auction... and year later sold it... 2016 if I recall correctly.

I remember standing at the fence at turn 2 in a practice or quali session when Mr. Lang was out there. He spun it on one early lap. I happened to be standing next to Dave Morse's wife. After the session I saw her talking to Mr. Lang.

Some of my pcar friends knew Mr. Lang pretty well or very well and were sad when he died. By all accounts a great person and lover of Porsches.

Thanks for sharing the picture and memories.

Now I am craving a Jever beer...

The '98 historics was a very, very special Porsche event.