Returning to a track where a team holds the most recent win is always a cause for optimism, and for the BMW experts at BimmerWorld, racing this weekend at the 2.3-mile, 17-turn Barber Motorsports Park facility is loaded with potential.

Current driver Gregory Liefooghe and former BimmerWorld pilot David Levine scored the GRAND-AM Continental Tire Street Tuner (ST) win at the rolling circuit in 2012, and with another year of development on the team’s BMW 328is, the Virginia-based aftermarket and tuning pros want nothing more than to win two-in-a-row at the Alabama track.

The BimmerWorld team has always run well at Barber, which is somewhat odd due to the track’s twisting and narrow nature which favors the smaller, lighter cars in the ST category.

Putting its Barber history aside, the 2013 ST rules seem to favor the pint-sized cars through the first two rounds, which could make a repeat for BimmerWorld and its BMW sedans a challenge, but team owner/driver James Clay says his 3-car program will be ready to achieve their maximum potential.

“The big and heavy BimmerWorld 328i has done well at Barber in years past, which is really an anomaly,” he noted. “The track has a lot of steep elevation and long turns really better suited for the motorcycles it was designed for and the light, nimble cars in our series that are their closer relatives. I think our success at this track has come from fantastically dialed engineering work, solid teamwork between cars, and a bit of luck. Certainly we hope to repeat, but after the recent ST results, I think we have seen that luck will need to play a significant part.”

Of its three entries, BimmerWorld’s Dan Rogers and Seth Thomas head into Barber in the most advantageous position, sitting third in points with the No.82 CRC BRAKLEEN® BMW 328i. Early misfortune in the Championship has given the Nos. 80 and 81 teams a bit of digging to do, but with the No. 82 on track, Clay expects its drivers to keep the season-long title in mind.

“Dan and Seth in the No. 82 clearly have a Championship focus and are driving for points, and I think that will pay off for them,” he said. “You have to stay clean, and it’s nice to win a race or two, but certainly this early in the season if you can make sure you are there at the end, before everything ramps up towards the end of the year, you can accumulate some points before the whole field is focused that direction.”

Connor Bloum and Greg Strelzoff lead the No. 80 BimmerWorld BMW 328i and have a slightly different focus for Barber.

“We obviously need to get through the race cleanly,” said Bloum. “But at the same time, we’re trying to earn as many points as possible to catch up to our teammates. You can’t really drive cautiously in these races, and you can’t drive too aggressively because that’s where accidents start to happen, so we’ll have to find the right balance. We don’t want to give up any points we feel we can get without jeopardizing the car.”

After joining the team for his second season of ST competition, Tyler Cooke partners with Liefooghe in the No. 81 BimmerWorld BMW 328i and expects to put his knowledge of the Barber circuit to good use this weekend, albeit in a different car from the one he used in 2012.

“Some experience here really helps because you have an Idea of where the big elevation changes are, and if a corner has a curb, for example, you might not be able to use it compared to the ones that will keep the car settled,” he said. “It is going to be different from the running the Mazda I had last year, but I feel like the basics are going to be the same. I think the BMW is going to have to work hard from what I’ve seen the last two rounds and think Greg and I will have a great race.”

BimmerWorld’s race strategy has always been one of the team’s greatest strengths, and last year’s win at Barber was certainly a testament to the team’s planning and engineering capabilities.

As Dan Rogers explains, attacking a track like Barber must be done with the team’s overall race strategy in mind. Going full-tilt for 2.5 hours sounds like a lot of fun, but he knows working within BimmerWorld’s game plan is the most likely path to finding Victory Lane.

“For the No. 82 CRC BRAKLEEN® BMW car this year, it is all about driving within the team vision and strategy,” he said. “My co-driver Seth, our engineer Wayne Yawn and I are all on the same page with regard to the season goals, how those translate into individual race goals, and even specific strategy calls within the race.

“The goal for us is an ST Championship. This means at each track, we have to consistently finish well. Finishing well is a priority over winning races. In the Continental Tire Series, if you plan to finish well, you’re likely to pick up your share of podiums. That’s our goal this weekend and every weekend.”

Follow the team’s progress throughout the weekend by visiting www.BimmerworldRacing.com.

Give the BMW experts at BimmerWorld time to tinker and test its trio of 328i GRAND-AM Continental Tire Street Tuner cars, and the hard-working team from Virginia will fill every possible moment with new ideas and innovations to try.

With a two-month gap between Round 1 of the Continental Championship, held at the famed Daytona International Speedway in Florida, and this weekend’s Round 2 set for Barber Motorsports Park in Alabama, team owner/driver James Clay says he’s confident in the overall package BimmerWorld has continued to develop during the recent downtime.

“The BimmerWorld Daytona performance proved to us that our renewed focus on the team is going to produce results, but unfortunately it also showed that some of the other marques in the field are quicker than the BMWs at this point, and we will need some luck to capture the championship we are aiming for.

“In my experience, the best luck is made, so we have been focusing on both refining the car package with on-track testing, as well as putting a significant amount of effort toward the team and equipment, which I feel is our biggest strength already.  Having all the procedures and pieces in place to overcome adversity will pay dividends and keep our results consistent and will be a good countermeasure to the sporadic, blazing speed of other marques.”

Teamed with John Capestro-Dubets in the No. 80 BimmerWorld BMW 328i, Clay anticipates the handling and braking attributes that helped to steer the No. 81 BimmerWorld car of Gregory Liefooghe and David Levine to the podium at Daytona will play to the team’s favor at the notoriously tough 17-turns, 2.3-mile Alabama road course.

“Our Barber setup is very good, as confirmed by our strong run there last year,” he said. “From a track layout standpoint it doesn’t seem like Barber should be good to us, but we will arrive dialed in and that goes a long way.  We just need a little help from the field to limit the yellows and get some long runs, where our effort in consistency will start to pay off.”

Coming off a third-place finish with Levine, Liefooghe says maintaining his edge during such an extended period between GRAND-AM races hasn’t been a challenge.

“Away from the GRAND-AM circuit, I’m working at the Simraceway Racing School, which includes the Audi Sports Car Experience and Mitsubishi Driving School, and I have been doing a lot of private coaching since race season started in early February here in California. Between instructing, coaching and car development for my clients, it adds up to quite a bit of driving each week, which helps me to stay sharp. This second ‘offseason’ has been quite long, and we will need to bring the same focus that we brought to Daytona as Barber is shaping up to be an intense race.”

The third BimmerWorld team car, the No. 82 CRC BRAKLEEN® BMW 328i driven by Seth Thomas and Dan Rogers, was poised to join the Nos. 80 and 81 inside the top 10 at Daytona, but those chances were lost after taking a hard hit by a competitor.

With just 10 races in the championship, losing out on a solid finish—and the points that come with it—can have a dire impact at the end of the season, but Rogers says he and Thomas won’t take extra risks at Barber or any other event to try and make up the points needed to earn a title.

“If we focus on the season long goal of a championship, the unfortunate hit we took at Daytona put us in a deep hole in the championship points race. If we approach the Barber race with a ‘performance mentality,’ and focus on driving the race, we still believe the results will come.

“Seth and I had only one goal this season – a championship.  The way you win a championship is to perform at your highest level and drive every race, and every lap in each race, consistently and to the best of our abilities.  The results will take care of themselves. I’m really looking forward to Barber. It’s a classic road course, which is where I feel most at home.”

Follow the team’s progress this weekend at www.BimmerWorldRacing.com and tune in to SPEED on April 8^th at 12 p.m. ET to watch the Barber Motorsports Park race.

If the expression “you make your own luck” is true, Dublin, Virginia’s BimmerWorld Racing is on the hunt for the recipe.

After another promising weekend in the Street Tuner division of the GRAND-AM Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge series, held at Barber Motorsports Park in Leeds, Alabama, the BMW experts came away with a slight pit in their stomachs after contact with other cars left the team with little to show for their efforts.

BimmerWorld stormed the 2010 Street Tuner division, taking second in both the teams’ and drivers’ Championships, but after three rounds of ST racing in 2011, team owner James Clay says he’s still waiting for fortunes to smile on his GRAND-AM ST effort.

“Certainly this season we have seen new players in the Championship hunt, both in the form of new teams and teams with new equipment or a lot of development work and help with rules in the off-season. But we have strong cars and excellent driver combinations, which just needs to be supplemented by a little luck at this point.”

The breakout stars of the ST class this year have been the Exclusive Management pairing of ace driver Gregory Liefooghe and rookie sensation John Capestro-Dubets behind the wheel of the No. 81 BimmerWorld BMW 328i. Starting the season off with a podium at Daytona, the duo appeared to be on pace for another podium at Barber, but a hit from behind while challenging for second place was all it took to send their blue BMW into the gravel trap.

They would lose more than a dozen laps and finish 23rd in class.

“I think we have all the ingredients to win a championship except for one so far: luck,” said Liefooghe. “We have one of the best driver combos in the paddock and also one of the best teams in the paddock, with my teammate John doing a great job to start the race before handing over to me. At the last race, even though we didn’t have the pace to win, we still had enough for a top 5.

“In Barber, we had a winning car, we were able to work on the setup and found one that was easy on the tires. We also had the best car in our class at the end of long stints. Unfortunately, it seems every time I’m about to get in the car, something happens and takes us out of contention. When I got back out in Barber after they pulled John out of the gravel, I got a lap back which proves just how competitive the car was and that we had the potential to win once again. I think our next move will be to weld a horseshoe or something of that nature to bring luck to our BimmerWorld BMW!”

For Capestro-Dubets, Barber marked his third professional race of any kind, yet the San Diego native found himself fighting for the top two spots in the ST class. Even with an unrepresentative finish to the weekend, he says he’s happy with the promise that was shown in the No. 81 328i.

“I am very happy with the highs of Barber. It was my first time at that track and I can’t thank my team enough for helping get ready for the race. My manager Michael Duncalfe helped to get me up to speed quickly, and my crew gave me an extremely well prepared car. We had a great race up until being hit. I couldn’t be happier with the team, though, and hope to deliver better results very soon.”

Bill Heumann and David White also had a better finish awaiting them, but had to settle for 15th in ST after their BimmerWorld BMW 328i incurred damage from contact.

“Barber was a very disappointing race for me as I was not able to bring home the finish that the team deserved,” said White, who claimed pole position at Barber for the ST race in 2010. “The BimmerWorld crew put in a lot of hard work in the Alabama heat to give us the best cars possible and it was showing late in the race when the No. 80 BimmerWorld BMW 328i had great pace.

“Unfortunately, contact is sometimes a part of racing and I took a hit that damaged my suspension, forcing me to give up several spots as I limped the car home to the finish. We have the cars working very well and when we shake some of this bad luck we’ve been experiencing, Bill and I will be fighting for wins.”

Heumann, the 2010 MESCO Rookie of the Year, says there is no reason to hit the panic button or to change anything about how the team goes racing. With a bit of patience, the bad luck streak will pass.

“I am disappointed in the results but not demoralized. I think we have a great team and we had a great car. We will keep our focus and effort on doing the best job we can and the change in luck will come our way.”

BimmerWorld has five weeks to prepare for the next race, held at the team’s home track at Virginia International Raceway, with updates on their progress and preparation available on www.BimmerWorldRacing.com.

The broadcast for the Barber race can be seen April 16th at 2 p.m. ET on SPEED, and On Demand at www.SPEED2.com.

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Courtesy: BimmerWorld Media Services
[email protected]

More information about the team, cars, and drivers can be found at www.bimmerworldracing.com
Information on BimmerWorld’s Customer Car Services can be found at www.bimmerworld.com
Details on PowerFlex Suspension Bushings can be found at www.powerflexusa.com

No matter how much the BMW experts from BimmerWorld Racing want to conquer the GRAND-AM Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge Grand Sport division in their first season of racing M3 V8s in the class, the team will continue to chant the mantra of “it’s a development year” throughout the 10-race calendar.

That’s far from being an excuse, as the Dublin, Virginia-based team holds itself to the highest standards and expectations possible, but with just a matter of months of development behind their BimmerWorld-built BMW M3s, overcoming the years of experience their fellow M3 runners have will simply take time.

BimmerWorld’s latest race, held last weekend at Barber Motorsports Park in Leeds, Alabama, served as the latest reminder of how far the team has come since the season opener in January, but also offered a benchmark for where they stand in the 28-car field.

With the No. 78 Shopzilla.com-sponsored BimmerWorld BMW M3 of Bob Michaelian and Kenny Wilden running inside the top 10 before ultimately crossing the finish line in 11th place, and with the No. 79 Johnstone Supply-sponsored BimmerWorld BMW M3 of Seth Thomas and team owner/driver James Clay placing 15th, more hard work is planned in the weeks ahead of the team’s home race at Virginia International Raceway in May.

“The GS class is certainly difficult, but we knew it would be,” said Clay. “The other M3 teams have a year or two on us in developing the car and the levels of GS programs are generally higher than the ST programs in the paddock. We knew success wouldn’t happen overnight, but at this point, I think we have a very good idea of what we need to do. And once we have the time to fully implement our plans and developments for the BimmerWorld M3 platform, we will start to see the results of all the hard work everyone has been putting in.”

While Clay and his talented team continue to hone their M3s into future race winners, he says he’s been extremely pleased with how well BimmerWorld’s GS drivers and crew members have been performing.

“The team is just fantastic this year. The crew guys are working like a well-oiled machine and the engineering and driving tasks are leading us down a path of continuous improvement. Certainly these are trying times as the work is going in much faster than the results are coming out, but I am confident that part will follow shortly – we have a tremendous group to work with and the results will be there.”

For Michaelian, the defending Barber GS race winner, knowing the BimmerWorld team continues to work tirelessly to improve their M3s continues to fuel his optimism.

“I feel like we had really solid weekend,” he said. “We made good progress with the balance of the Shopzilla.com car and feel like we have a solid game plan for future improvements. The team has been super supportive. I can’t say enough about the BimmerWorld engineering staff and pit crew. James Clay has been great to work with. He fully understands how competitive the GS class is and is dead set on getting us where we need to be. That is super motivating. We definitely learned a lot this weekend and can use those lessons to continue to make improvements in the next round at VIR.”

Michaelian’s co-driver shares the same opinion about the direction the team is headed.

“I think we have made good progress,” said Wilden. “I would like to see us compete for top 5s over the next few races, and if we can do that, by the end of the year we should be able to go for podiums.”

Seth Thomas, who nearly won the 2010 GRAND-AM Street Tuner championship with BimmerWorld on his first try, has been an integral part of the team since its early days in pro racing. As he’s seen before, it’s only a matter of time before BimmerWorld moves to the front of the pack.

“The season is still very young but I have seen the strengths of the BimmerWorld team to dig deep and give us what it takes to put our Johnstone Supply sponsored BMW M3 up front,” he said. “Being with the team for as long as I have, I know we have been down this path of development in the past and we always come out on top. Every race this season the car gets better and better, and our M3s get faster and faster.

“Our PFC brake package has been amazing on the M3, our RAYS wheels have stood up to the test every time and Redline Oil has kept the M3’s big V8 engine working flawlessly so far. The cars are very good, but it takes a lot of other little ingredients to win. My job is to keep driving like I have been and give the team the best performance possible so we can add in those extra few ingredients. Our teammates in the No. 78 M3 have been a big help to speed up our pace of development, as has my co-driver, James. We’ll get there, and when we do, look out!”

As BimmerWorld continues to build its knowledgebase on the BMW M3 in racing trim, Clay says they will do everything possible to make the upcoming race at VIR a success.

“We tested a bit at VIR before this event and will put more time in there before the coming race. The Barber setup didn’t seem to follow the testing work we had done as closely as we wanted, but we learned more and I think VIR should be a very positive weekend as our program develops.”

Follow BimmerWorld as they prepare to tackle their home track at VIR next month at www.BimmerWorldRacing.com.

The broadcast for the Barber race can be seen April 16th at 2 p.m. ET on SPEED, and On Demand at www.SPEED2.com.

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Courtesy: BimmerWorld Media Services
[email protected]

More information about the team, cars, and drivers can be found at www.bimmerworldracing.com
Information on BimmerWorld’s Customer Car Services can be found at www.bimmerworld.com
Details on PowerFlex Suspension Bushings can be found at www.powerflexusa.com