DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — A photograph from Kenny Murillo and Aurora Straus’ New Year’s Eve wedding shows the two embracing on the dance floor with the words “K&A Full Throttle Forever” projected on the wall behind them.
It both captures the special moment and officially crowns a team. In life and on the race track.
Murillo and Straus don’t only support one another’s efforts competing in the IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge – this season, for the first time in their racing careers, they share the driver’s seat in the No. 24 Murillo Racing Mercedes-AMG GT GT4 in Grand Sport (GS).
They started their season with a 14th place finish in the 35-car GS field for the four-hour BMW M Endurance Challenge at Daytona International Speedway. As they head to Sebring International Raceway, they’ll race together after starting next to each other in second (Murillo) and third (Straus) in GS the last time they raced there in Michelin Pilot Challenge in 2023.
It’s a highly unusual competitive pairing but one they have full confidence will result in lots of happily ever-afters.
“It just kind of came together naturally which makes it that much better,” Murillo said.
The 29-old-Murillo – a multi-generational racer – and the 27-year-old Straus have both been competing in the sport since they were teenagers. They met, appropriately enough, at a year-end awards banquet for the Michelin Pilot Challenge. Straus received a 2017 rookie-of-the-year award (she competed the full season in ST with RS1) and as it turned out, got a very important introduction to Murillo.
In the years and race seasons since that first meeting, both have been busy “doing life” and building their racing careers. Murillo, a race engineer, helps lead his family’s long-tenured team and has been a championship-contending driver in the Michelin Pilot Challenge. Murillo Racing won the 2014 and 2017 ST championships with Eric Foss and in 2023, Murillo and Christian Szymczak finished third in GS with a win at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca.
Straus has balanced her own driving career while attending Harvard University. Yes, that Harvard, where she graduated with Highest Honors in 2022 earning a degree in History and Government – having skillfully scheduled her classes so she could fly out of Boston for race weekends.
“It required a lot of discipline,” Straus said, acknowledging the understatement.
But challenge and achievement – and discipline – have defined much of this couple’s lives. So, racing together? They feel not only prepared but are eager to share in such a unique opportunity.
“We have very different strengths which is part of why we knew we’d work really well together,” Straus said.
“Part of this, candidly, is that after eight years of dating, we’ve had the opportunity to see each other at our lowest lows and highest highs. It’s been an interesting learning curve working together for the first time. We’re learning a lot, but I do think we’re going to be competitive.”
When they first started dating, Murillo and Straus purposely didn’t present at track as a couple. They raced different cars in various series and when competing at the same track for a race weekend, they went to great lengths to project and maintain their individual careers.
“It was a very hard line for me, our Venn diagrams of our motorsports careers needed to be separate circles,” said Straus, noting Murillo is the first and only person involved in motorsports that she ever dated.
“I didn’t want to overlap with the same manufacturer or the same sponsors,’’ she added of the early times in their relationship. “We really went out of our way to separate it. We stayed in different hotel rooms and got separate rental cars. It mattered a lot to me that I did this on my own and he did it on his own.
“And I think to be honest, we have better careers and are stronger as a result of it. We have had the opportunity to support each other on a personal level, but on a professional level we also proved we can stand on our own two feet, which matters a lot to us.”
Living together, working together and competing together now as husband and wife certainly calls for a higher level of cooperation, but this couple seems to have figured out how to manage that in all aspects of their daily lives. Racing together has tested them but also has affirmed them.
“It’s a really important part of our lives – who we are individually and who we are as a couple,” Murillo said. “And especially as we’ve gotten this team together and are racing this year, there’s been multiple moments where say on a date night, we’re talking about something else, maybe a TV show, then two minutes later a thought pops into our head about, say, how we could have done better at Daytona. And that’s what we talk about.
“It’s an important part of who we are, and I don’t think turning it off is really an option.”
He does concede, however, that once people realize he and Straus are not just teammates in the car but actually married, “Obviously the question I get all the time is, ‘if you crash the race car, are you sleeping on the couch?’”
Adding with a laugh, “It’s always in good fun. And the answer is, ‘no!’
“We’re both extremely competitive people and we’re going to do whatever it takes to get good results.”
Straus joked of the unique situation, “I’ve never been this close to a co-driver and he knows what exactly to say to me on the radio to make me just angry enough to be faster.”
They both bring different talents to the team beyond the driver’s seat as an ultimate blend of skills. Straus has focused and excelled at selling sponsorship and promoting the business-to-business opportunities. Murillo aptly handles the operational end of the team. And they both know how to get around a racetrack.
“I can make sure he has the money and backing to hire these great guys and then he can make sure we have a winning race car so it works out pretty great,’’ Straus said.
“I think the main thing that made a difference is we’ve learned enough about who we are as drivers and as people at this point, we knew we would work well together as teammates.”
The Daytona race with the 14th-place result came after losing power and getting shuffled to last place twice, so it marked a recovery drive. It was a solid start, perhaps even a bit metaphoric – working together, they persevered and felt good about what they accomplished. Just as importantly, they’re encouraged on what they can expect in the future.
Straus dubbed the weekend “our non-honeymoon” and shared that they had even brought a full layer of their chocolate-marble-liqueur wedding cake to the speedway to celebrate with the team post-race.
Murillo has called the opportunity to co-drive with Straus “a dream come true.’’
As he said when proudly announcing their 2026 plans, “We’ve both cheered each other on for eight years now and fought for our own championships, but now we get to do it together.”
