BimmerWorld Mosport Wrap-Up
Slippery When Wet - BimmerWorld Slowed By The Rain
Without a proven wet-weather set-up for their new BMW 325i E90 race cars, the BimmerWorld team found themselves left out in the rain at The Labour Day Weekend Grand Prix of Mosport in Bowmanville, Ontario. It was Round 8 of the SCCA Pro Racing SPEED World Challenge Touring Car championship.
Having enjoyed good speeds and quick times in the dry practice sessions, the wet weather dealt the team a wild card on race day. James Clay finished 15th while Seth Thomas finished 21st.
"I was encouraged going into the race," stated BimmerWorld owner and driver of the No. 36 BimmerWorld BMW 325i, James Clay. "I qualified 8th [second top 10 in the new E90 car] in a drying session. It felt good to be back in the top 10 again after all the work we have put into the new chassis."
"Unfortunately," James continued, "the first time in the rain for the E90 cars showed some suspension setup issues we had been concerned about. I've looked at my data from the race and while I was happy to see consistency, I wish we had been able to produce more rear grip to make the car fast!"
"This is all part of the learning process for the BimmerWorld E90 325i," noted Clay. "It's part of the dues we are paying to be the first team in North America to run these cars. However, I do feel the payout will be well deserved next year. The more situations we run into like this cold and rainy race, the better equipped we will be to win next year."
Seth Thomas, driver of the No. 38 BimmerWorld BMW 325i, did not fair so well either. Though the typically upbeat young driver still managed to have some fun.
"Wet and cold would sum up the weekend for me," laughed Seth. "The race was a lot of fun slipping and sliding around, but it wasn't productive. This was our first time running the BimmerWorld BMW E90 325 in the rain. I think it showed as the car wasn't as fast as it needed to be in the race."
"The cars have come a long way since their Mid Ohio debut," Seth noted. "To be honest, Mosport was the race I thought would have been a breakthrough event for us. I guess no one told the weather man."
"Mosport was a track I was looking forward to visiting." continued Seth. "At least prior to the rain. I still love the track, but man I wish it wouldn't have rained. The crew gave us great cars and we would have finished a lot better with a dry track."
"I'm already focusing on our upcoming race at Road Atlanta," said Seth, looking forward. "With Road Atlanta being my home track the pressure is on to have a good finish. I know the BimmerWorld crew will give me a great car for the weekend and so my goal is just to get back on track with a good qualifying run and get a clean shot at finishing on the podium."
BimmerWorld is pleased to have support from the top performance companies in the industry: Performance Friction Brakes, Moton, BBS, Bimmerforums.com, Diffsonline, Ground Control, JB Racing, Rogue Engineering and Silkolene.
BimmerWorld is a leading retailer of high performance street and racing BMW parts. Our race program continually drives development for BimmerWorld's increasing line of BMW race and street performance parts. BimmerWorld customers expect the very best.
To learn more about BimmerWorld and their extensive line of BMW performance products, go to their website at: www.BimmerWorld.com
Regarded as the most relevant and top production car road racing series in the world, the SCCA SPEED World Challenge Championships are broken into two distinct sub-series that run separately from one another- SCCA SPEED GT and SCCA SPEED Touring Car. Each Championship is run in a 50-minute "sprint" race format, featuring recognizable cars, world-class drivers and standing starts. For more information about the SCCA Pro Racing SPEED World Challenge Championships, please visit www.world-challenge.com
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