ALMS: BMW Team PTG gets podium at Mosport
7 August 2000
BMW Team PTG finished second and fifth in Sunday's rain-soaked race. Hans Stuck started the #7 BMW M3 and swapped the lead with the #23 Porsche before a spin forced him into the pits to check tires. He held second place, handed over to Boris Said after 75 minutes of the two-hour 45-minute race and the pair finished second. Brian Cunningham and Peter Cunningham raced as high as third in the #10 M3, but had to settle for a fifth-place finish. The #6 car retired early after Johannes van Overbeek spun and hit the wall in turn three. Hans Stuck, driver, #7 BMW M3 "I had a little mishap in the race, but I don't think it cost us the win. It shows that we have to work hard, but we're right there, so second place is great. It proved our win at Sears Point a little bit." Boris Said, driver, #7 BMW M3 "It's too bad, we had really good pitstops and we had a good car. We should have won the race, but we had a little glitch and Hans thought we had some damage. He came in and we lost a lap, and we just couldn't make it back. Second's not bad, we'll take it and move on to the next one." Peter Cunningham, driver, #10 BMW M3 "Unfortunately, we were erroneously put a lap down when the first yellow came out, and that pretty much froze us out of a top position. We still could have been a little better than what we were, but we ended up staying on rain tires. One of the other cars switched to dries and came from nowhere and just drove right by us. We had a decent run, and we'll just keep getting better." Johannes van Overbeek, driver, #6 BMW M3 "We went from eighth to first and everything was going great. Then we came in for rain tires and when it went green, I was coming out of turn three and it just snapped on me and smacked the wall. We probably could have fixed it, but we would have spent most of the race fixing the car instead of driving it. So I think it was best just to park it and go get 'em in Texas." Tom Salkowsky, motorsport manager, BMW of North America, Inc. "The weather got nasty really quick and a lot of it came down to tire strategy and keeping the cars on the track. Mosport is an unforgiving track, and when you add the weather elements, it gets even more challenging. Hats off to Charly Lamm, Tom Milner and the drivers because they did a really good job. A podium finish at Mosport in the rain, we'll take it." pit practice BMW Team PTG worked late Saturday evening, practicing pitstops for today's race. Team owner Tom Milner offered a bonus for a pitstop time of 19 seconds. The #7 crew responded with an 18.2-second time and found $200 on the windshield after practice. "We'll do the same thing for you on race day at no charge," said crew chief Larry Hahn.