Friday, January 22, 2010

Rolex 24 and Conti Sports Car Series

As those of you (all 3 of you at last tally) that follow this blog know I have a bit of a thing for sportscar racing. We are only a week away from the start of the racing season when the Continental (formerly Koni) Sports Car Series kicks-off at Daytona followed by the Grand Am Series Rolex 24 at Daytona (Jan. 30-31).

There is plenty to be excited about this year if you are a BMW fan in both series.
GRAND AM: In the Grand Am Series, Dinan-BMW engines will power several new Daytona Prototype (DP) teams including multiple-time series and Daytona 24 champion Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates. Ganassi will sport an impressive driver lineup that includes 3 Indy 500 champions (Dario Franchitti, Scott Dixon and JP Montoya) all in the same car! There is also a BMW presence in the GT category as Turner racing will be running a Riley developed tube-frame M6 (see video below). The action starts next Saturday at 2pm CT live on SPEED but you can catch a special behind the scenes show "GRAND-AM: 24 Hours at Dayton" tonight at 11pm CT (that's midnight for you Hardflip so set the DVR).


This is a very cool "teaser" for a behind-the-scenes Web TV series to chronicle the Turner Motorsports team's tremendous efforts and journey to the Rolex 24 hour race produced by documentary filmmaker Veloz Media. Read more here.

CONTI SPORTS CAR: The BMW presence in the Continental Sports Car Series will be even more impressive when the series takes the flag for the Fresh From Florida 200 race next Friday. BMW will be represented in the Grand Sport class (GS) by a stable of no less than eight E92 M3 race cars from teams including Turner, Fall Line, Automatic and Kinetic. The E92 M3s take on 911s, Mustangs, Camaros, and Sti and others in the GS class. Turner's E46 M3 won last year in a real nail biter.
In the Street Tuner class (ST), the big news is of the arrival of the Bimmerworld Racing BMW team that has joint the Conti series after its departure from the SCCA World Challenge series. Bimmerworld will campaign two 328s in ST. Turner Motorsports will also campaign two BMW 328s. The ST class also features Mini Coopers, Civic SIs , VW GTIs (barf) and Kia Fortes (double barf). The Bimmerworld cars looked strong right out of the gate as they topped the first day of testing (Roar Before the 24). Most of the Conti races will be broadcast on SPEED. The Daytona 200 will air on Saturday, February 13 at 7pm.

Some cool action from last year's Conti Challenge race at Watkins Glen featuring two of the Turner M3s.

Posted by CJ at 9:43 AM

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