BMWs swept the EO class podium in the grueling 25 Hours of Thunderhill, run on the three-mile long northern California circuit on December 8 and 9.
Scott Smith, Dean Mansour, Andrie Hartanto, and Lance Boicelli finished fourth overall and first in the EO class in their E36 M3. Two more BMWs, each driven by a team of five racers, finished second and third in EO. An M3 piloted by Navid Kahangi, Eric Knudstrup, Donny Edwards, Anthony Zwain, and Rylan Hazelton was second, and an E46 M3 team that included Marc Ghafouri, VJ Mirzayan, Chris Sarian, James Stevens, and John Longwell finished third.
Ralph Warren had qualified Dan Wennerberg’s E46 325i on the EO class pole. The team of Wennerberg, Warren, Vic Pizzino, Mario Rigoli, and Josh Zwart went on to lead the class much of the way until a blown head gasket ended their race with just three of the 25 hours remaining.
A Porsche 997 driven by Pierre Ehret, Tyler McQuarrie, Anthony Ward, Christian Bollrath and Memo Gidley took the overall win.
Seventy cars started the race, which started at 11:30 AM pacific time on Saturday. The race ended at 12:30 on Sunday afternoon with 47 cars taking the checkered flag. Complete race results are available here.—Brian Morgan
