Tyler Cooke and James Clay in the #84 BimmerWorld 328i finished third in the Street Tuner class in the 2½-hour Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge Series race at Sebring on March 18.
It was an eventful race weekend for the BimmerWorld team; first an electrical fire in practice led to a major repair effort, and then Cooke qualified the newly-repaired car on the class pole. After that, an engine change before the race forced #84 to the back of the pack for the start.
It did not take Cooke long to move #84 to the front of the pack; he was in the top four in no time, and was second just before he handed off to Clay. After falling back a bit following the driver change Clay recovered to finish third in class behind a pair of Hondas. The Civic Si driven by Owen Trinkler and Sarah Cattaneo won, while the Si of Michael Valiante and Chad Gilsinger finished third.
The other BMWs and the Minis in the ST class finished further back; Jerry Kaufman and Kyle Tilley were thirteenth in class in the #81 BimmerWorld 328i, Tim Probert, Brent Mosing, and Justin Piscitell were fifteenth in the Murillo 328i, Derek Jones and Matt Pombo were sixteenth in the #73 Mini JCW, and James Vance and Ramin Abdolvahabi were seventeenth in the #7 Mini JCW. Ethan Low and Mark Pombo finished twentieth in the #37 Mini after the car went off course and into the wall on the final lap of the race following what appeared to be a mechanical failure.
Trent Hindman and his co-driver Cameron Cassels won the race and the Grand Sport class in the first race of the season for the Bodymotion Racing Porsche Cayman GT4 Clubsport. Hindman, who won the 2014 Grand Sport class drivers’ championship in a Fall-Line M3, was a BMW Junior in 2015, but did not get a 2015 drive for BMW. He won the last CTSC race in which he had run, the 2015 season finale at Road Atlanta; he shared the winning Fall-Line M3 there with Ashley Freiberg. There is no BMW presence in the Grand Sport class this season.
CTSC competition resumes at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca on April 29 and 30.—Brian S. Morgan
