The sixth-place finish by BimmerWorld 328i racers James Clay and Tyler Cooke was BMW's best in the 2½-hour Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge race run on a very hot Saturday at Lime Rock.
Both Clay and Cooke ran in the top five on their stints, but in the end the Mazda MX-5s that held the lead from the start held on for the Street Tuner class win, and other competitors found their way by the BMW late in the race. The MX-5 of Steve McAleer and Chad McCumbee won ST.
The #73 Mini driven by Derek Jones and Mat Pombo looked strong for a time, trailing Clay early in the race, but it fell back after it was punted off course in the left hander. It finished seventeenth in class.
Next to Clay and Cooke the best BMW finishers were Tim Probert, Justin Piscitell, and Jeff Mosing in eleventh place in the #65 Murillo Racing 328i. The #37 Mini driven by James Vance and Ethan Low was 13th, and the #81 BimmerWorld 328i driven by Jerry Kaufman and Kyle Tilley was 14th.
Stephen Simpson and Michael Johnson finished sixteenth in the #54 228i JDC-Miller Motorsports 228i, a car that, as Johnson indicated before the race, is still under development.
The overall and Grand Sport wins went to Billy Johnson and Scott Maxwell in a Shelby GT350R-C.
The next CTSC race will be run at Road America on August 6.—Brian S. Morgan
