Racing News

     

    BMW’s best finishes in the 2½-hour Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge race at Barber Motorsports Park came in the ST class, where Burton Racing’s Terry Borcheller and Mike LaMarra finished fourth in a 128i, and BimmerWorld’s Tyler Cooke and Greg Liefooghe finished fifth in a 328i. The class win went to a trio of Mazda MX-5s led by Tom Long and Derek Whitis. 
     
    Charles Espenlaub started from the Grand Sport pole in the Fall-Line Motorsports M3 that he shared with Al Carter. He led for a time, fell back, and then regained the lead—but in the end, he and Carter finished seventh; the overall and Grand-Sport win went to Matt Plumb and Nick Longhi in a Porsche Carrera.

    Carter piloted two Fall-Line M3s at Barber; the car he shared with Hugh Plumb exited the race from eighth place with a transmission problem. The third Fall-Line car, driven by Bryan Sellers and Mark Boden, stopped on course with a mechanical problem while it was running second. The other two M3s in the pack also dropped out. Bill Auberlen parked the Turner M3 that he shared with Paul Dalla Lana not long after a collision that had led to a stop-and-go penalty, and the Automatic Racing M3 driven by Rob Ecklin and Steve Philips went into a guardrail on Ecklin’s stint.

    The BMWs in ST fared somewhat better than those in GS, with four finishes in the top eight. As noted above, Borcheller and LaMarra were fourth while Liefooghe and Cooke were fifth. Jesse Combs and Jeff Mosing, who had led early in the race, finished seventh in their RACE EPIC 328i, while Seth Thomas and Dan Rogers finished eighth in their BimmerWorld 328i.

    CTSCC runs again at Road Atlanta on April 20.—Brian S. Morgan