Riley-BMW wins Homestead Grand-Am, and BMW is second in Continental Challenge

[Roundel]

Pruett, Rojas win at Homestead

Scott Pruett and Memo Rojas won the Grand-Am Rolex Series race at Homestead Miami Speedway, finishing ahead of the hard-charging Brumos Riley-Porsche of David Donohue/Darren Law. The win, the first of the season for the Dinan BMW-powered prototype, propelled Pruett and Rojas into the series’ points lead.

Law, who started from the pole, led for much of the first 1¾ hours of the race, but his Riley-Porsche lost the lead when he came in for a pit stop with about an hour left in the race. A fire had just been extinguished in a Mazda RX-8 sitting in the middle of the pit road, but when Law came in for his stop the car was still there, forcing him to slow.

The Riley-BMW of Scott Pruett and Memo Rojas took the overall win at Homestead. (Jon van Woerden photo)

Pruett came in for a very quick stop soon after the Riley-Porsche returned to the track with Donohue at the controls. Pruett held onto the lead for the rest of the race, holding off Donohue, who finished a close second. The Starworks Riley-BMW of Ryan Dalziel/Mike Forest finished fifth in its first race.

At the start of the race, Memo Rojas came together with the Riley-Ford of Brian Frisselle, whose car spun as a result. Many believed that a penalty would be forthcoming, but Grand-Am said that the incident was unavoidable side-to-side contact, so Rojas was allowed to continue.

Turner M6 finishes fifth in GT

The Turner M6 led at one point, but finished fifth in GT. (Jon van Woerden photo)

The Turner Motorsport M6 of Bill Auberlen and Joey Hand finished fifth in GT on a difficult weekend for the team. Because of a power-steering problem, the car had run only a few laps in practice before the race. Still, starting from the back, Auberlen moved the car up, running as high as second. He turned the car over to Hand, who led for several laps on his stint. However, trouble with the left front wheel on a late-race pit stop took the M6 out of contention for a podium spot. The class win went to the Mazda RX-8 of Jeff Segal/Emil Assentato.

The E92s battle restrictors and Mustangs at Homestead

Despite intake restrictors placed on the E92 M3s by Grand-Am, BMWs clawed their way to the front of the pack in Saturday's Continental Challenge race at Homestead.

The restrictors took their toll in qualifying; the fastest qualifying BMW was the seventh-place Fall-Line E92 M3 of Charles Espenlaub/Charles Putman that lined up behind five Mustangs and an Audi.

A sudden drop in visibility halted Matt Plumb's charge to victory at Homestead. (Grand-Am photo).

The Mustangs dominated for the first 1¾ hours of the 2½-hour race, until Matt Plumb took the lead in his Rum Bum E92 M3. But when Eric Curran in one of the Fall-Line M3s had to slow abruptly in traffic, Plumb ran into him. The incident left Plumb’s hood folded back over the windshield, and, flying blind as he tried to return to the pits, he ran into the barrels of sand at the pit entrance, ending his race just eleven laps before the end. Billy Johnson took over in the Mustang he shared with Jack Roush Jr. and held on for the overall and Grand Sport win. The Fall-Line M3 of Terry Borcheller/Andrew Hendricks was second, and the Turner Motorsport M3 of Joey Hand/Michael Marsal was third.

Mini is third and BimmerWorld is fourth in Street Tuner

In the Street Tuner class, Sarah Cattaneo started from the pole in the RSR Mini that she shared with VJ Mirzayan, but the car fell back during the race. In the end, another RSR Mini driven by BJ Zacharias/Craig Conway finished third, and the BimmerWorld E90 328i of Seth Thomas/Bill Heumann finished fourth. The class win went to the Mazda MX-5 of Derek Whitis/Tom Long.

Sarah Cattaneo took the Street Tuner pole in the #197 RSR Mini. (Jon van Woerden photo)

Going into the April race at Barber Motorsports Park, Thomas and Heumann were tied for second in points behind Honda racers David Thilenius and Lawson Aschenbach, who finished second at Homestead and had won at Daytona.—Brian S. Morgan, motorsports editor, bmwcca.org