Success is the hallmark that any professional racing team looks to maintain. The BimmerWorld GRAND-AM Continental Tire Series team is no different, which makes falling short of their lofty goals—even by just a little bit—hard to accept.
That, in a nutshell, was the sentiment held by the BMW experts after last weekend’s inaugural sports car race at the Circuit of The Americas (COTA) road course in Austin, TX.
Coming off of a pair of top-4 finishes at the season-opening race at Daytona International Speedway, the team was eager to maintain that form around the 3.4-mile, 20-turn track during Round 2. Most of the field in the Street Tuner class would have been ecstatic to place their cars eighth and 10th at the checkered flag, but on a day where the smaller, lighter cars in the class held a distinct advantage, BimmerWorld owner James Clay wasn’t feeling quite as satisfied.
The biggest highlight of the race came with the No. 80 BimmerWorld BMW 328i piloted by series newcomers Greg Strelzoff and Connor Bloum. The teammates rebounded from a rough Round 1 to claim eighth after improving 19 spots from their original starting position.
For Strelzoff, the solid finish at COTA was a nice re-launch to the 2013 championship.
Bloum says he’ll take the lessons learned in Austin and apply them to the rest of the 11-race ST calendar.
The No. 80 was chased home by the No. 82 CRC BRAKLEEN® BMW 328i piloted by Seth Thomas and Dan Rogers. Like Strelzoff and Bloum, Thomas and Rogers also improved 19 positions during the race—a total of 38 spots between the sister cars—to claim 10th.
Coupled with a fourth-place finish at Daytona, the No. 82 CRC BRAKLEEN® drivers also head to Barber in a prime championship position.
The third BimmerWorld entry, driven by Gregory Liefooghe and Tyler Cooke, was forced to retire from the event. According to Liefooghe, who finished second at Daytona with Cooke, the rapid teammates will put COTA behind them and shift their attention to Round 3.
Follow the BimmerWorld team as they prepare for Barber at www.BimmerWorldRacing.com, and watch the COTA race when it airs on March 9th at 4 p.m. ET on SPEED.
BimmerWorld Racing has had a month to think about this weekend’s GRAND-AM Continental Tires Series event at Circuit of The Americas in Austin, TX, and has its sights set on taming the 3.4-mile, 20-turn road course with the impressive handling and braking capabilities of its highly tuned BMWs.
Coming off the season-opening race at Daytona where the team placed two of its three cars inside the top 4, BimmerWorld is looking to carry over that momentum as the Dublin, VA.-based sports car team gets its first look at the Grand Prix facility as a team.
“Having not tested our E90 BMWs at CoTA, we will certainly need to quickly get them dialed in, but our standard setup is very well tested at this point and it shouldn’t take much to get the cars where we want them to be,” said BimmerWorld owner/driver James Clay.
Years of in-house component development and tailoring of specific aftermarket packages for BimmerWorld’s customers will be put to good use at CoTA, as constant turning and hard braking zones will demand the ultimate performance from the team’s 328is.
As one of BimmerWorld’s two race engineers and strategists David Wagener explains, most Continental Tire Series teams have not tested at CoTA, forcing BimmerWorld and the majority of the field to use chassis setup elements from other tracks to try out during the first practice session.
Among the 3-car effort with the Nos. 80, 81 and 82 BimmerWorld BMWs, Gregory Liefooghe not only serves as the lead driver in the No. 81, but as a professional driving coach and also uses his knowledge to prepare his teammates for new tracks like CoTA.
The No. 82 CRC BRAKLEEN® BMW 328i, shared by co-drivers Seth Thomas and Dan Rogers, scored a historic win when the series made its first visit to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway last year, and as Rogers shares, he and Thomas would like nothing more than to add another ‘first time’ win on the series’ debut at CoTA.
A mechanical issue prevented Greg Strelzoff and Connor Bloum from placing the No. 80 BimmerWorld BMW 328i inside the top 5 at Daytona, which has only served to motivate the duo to train harder and strike back at Round 2 in Texas.
Follow the BimmerWorld team at CoTA with regular updates on www.BimmerWorldRacing.com, and be sure to watch the race when it airs on March 9th at 4 p.m. ET on SPEED.