Continental Tire Challenge BMW Performance 200 News And Notes

Subtitle:Read Key Storylines From Season Opener

Multimatic Motorsports Battles With Customer Shelby In Season Opener

The start of the 2016 IMSA Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge saw Compass360 Racing become fellow Toronto team Multimatic Motorsports’ first customer team with the Ford Shelby GT350R-C.

The new Ford raced for the first time at Daytona in last Friday’s BMW Performance 200, with Scott Maxwell and Billy Johnson taking the checkered flag in the No. 15 Ford Performance/Multimatic Motorsports Ford Shelby GT350R-C ahead of Compass360 Racing’s Pierre Kleinubing and Paul Holton, driving the No. 76 AERO Advanced Paint Technology/Children’s Tumor Foundation/Spyder Active Sports Shelby.

Kleinubing challenged for the lead down the stretch, but Johnson pulled away to win overall and in Grand Sport (GS) by 2.328 seconds.

“Billy seems to be the master at putting the power down,” Kleinubing said. “There were a couple of corners I just couldn’t get out of it, and he just pulls away. Nothing I could have done about it. But I’m super happy for the run. We’ve been struggling for podiums lately, so hopefully we can build from here.”

On top of driving in select IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship races in a GT Daytona Audi during the 2015 season, Kleinubing is beginning his third year for Compass360 in GS. He’s quite happy with his first impressions of the new Shelby.

“Unbelievable,” said Kleinubing, the 2012 Continental Tire Challenge Street Tuner (ST) class champion. “For a guy known for racing front-wheel drive cars, this is one of the nicest cars I’ve driven. It’s so balanced. Ford has done a tremendous job with it, and Compass360 has come up to speed rather quickly. We’ve got to thank Multimatic for all the help.”

Porsche Cayman GT4 Clubsport Impresses in Debut
Joining the Shelby in making its Daytona debut in the GS ranks was the new Porsche Cayman GT4 Clubsport. CJ Wilson Racing and Muehlner Motorsports America each raced the new car – although that number could double for the next round at Sebring International Raceway on March 18. The new car exceeded expectations in its debut.

Series rookie Danny Burkett was fastest at the recent Roar Before the Rolex 24 test, where the car led each of the three Daytona practices. Burkett then qualified on the front row and later joined Marc Miller in a third-place finish, 5.539 seconds behind the winner.

“I think we have a winner here – Porsche really nailed this one,” Burkett said. “It gelled very well with our Continental tires. During my stint, we were not only able to do well initially, but over the long run our car was able to keep progressing while everyone else fell off. Then, with Marc, the Continental tires held on for double stints. We’re looking forward to a great season.”

Burkett is looking forward to racing at Sebring, where he has logged plenty of miles in Pro Mazda while testing for Wayne Taylor’s Cape Motorsports team.

Team Owner C.J. Wilson Checks Another Box Off Bucket List

Three weeks after getting some seat time in his new Porsche race car at Daytona, Los Angeles Angles pitcher & Continental Tire Challenge team owner C.J. Wilson was able to secure another personal goal while in Florida last week.

“This was my first time to victory lane and the podium at Daytona,” Wilson said. “That was exciting. Usually we come here looking to escape with some points. We’re in a great position to start the season, and I think we learned a lot about the car.

“Marc and Danny drove absolutely fantastic in the race. We still have a little work to do. The fuel didn’t seem to load fast enough on our pit stops. We’re going to have to see if there’s something wrong with the hose, the rig or the gas tank itself.”

Now, Wilson is eager to get back to his other job with the Angels, while his race team is looking to get the car even better for Sebring and the rest of the season.

“Porsche did a great job providing a great piece to start with,” Miller said. “We’re going to keep learning and learning. I’ve got a new page of notes, all the things I was thinking on my in lap.”

Jeff Mosing and Eric Foss Win At Daytona for Second Time In Three Years

Driving the No. 56 Murillo Racing/Mosing Motorcars Porsche Cayman, Texas natives Mosing and Foss lead 52 of 66 laps on their way to a Daytona victory.

Spencer Pumpelly finished second in the No. 17 RS1 Porsche Cayman with new co-driver Nick Galante, a GS veteran making his first start in ST. Pumpelly won last year’s ST race at Daytona in the No. 17 machine.

“We had to come from pretty far back on the final restart, buried with a lot of lapped traffic between us and Foss,” Pumpelly said. “Finally we got through the field and got behind Foss.

I was hoping to run him down, but lap after lap, he got further and further away. My hat’s off to him – last year here he finished second behind me.”

“We came up a little short to Spencer last year, but the car was awesome today,” Foss said. “The Continental tires really held up, even though Jeff and I were both running them pretty hard.”

Defending ST Champions Begin Season From Behind

The two top contenders from the 2015 ST championship battle both started 2016 back in the standings.

Defending champions Chad McCumbee and Stevan McAleer – who switched to Freedom Autosport’s No. 25 SemperFiFund.org Mazda MX-5 from CJ Wilson Racing – finished 17th , coming back after an unscheduled pit stop due to contact early in the race. Last year’s second place team, Freedom Autosport’s No. 26 Mazda MX-5 of Andrew Carbonell and Liam Dwyer, placed 23rd.

“I think we had a motor go sour on us,” Dwyer said. “It started stumbling for me around the 50-minute, maybe the one-hour mark, and I radioed it in. It seemed like it fixed itself, but then it stopped pulling in fourth and fifth. So I just had to stay with the car and draft. It was the only way I could make a lap time.

“Andrew got in and felt the same thing. They came it, tried putting it on the computer, to see what it could do. It was not the result we wanted. We were hoping we could get a top 10 out of this place, but it’s a long season. We picked up some points and we’ll see what we can do at Sebring in a few weeks.”

Freedom Autosport dedicated its first race of the season to the 12 U.S. Marines who lost their lives in a helicopter crash off the coast of Hawaii on January 14.

James Clay Has Solid Run

Clay kicked off the season well in the No. 84 BimmerWorld Racing Optima Batteries BMW 328i co-driven by Tyler Cooke. He ran with the lead pack throughout his stint, nosing his car out front three times to lead three laps.

“We had a great car today,” Clay said. “We were in it to win it. I was just feeling out the car for Tyler, seeing where we were strong, seeing where we could make things happen. Brought it in right at the front. Then we developed a miss. It’s just one of those pesky things, it was gear dependent. We’ll figure it out. We’ve got a good car for the year.”

Jerry Kaufman, driver of BimmerWorld’s No. 81 328i, proposed to his girlfriend Ellie Bell on pit road moments before the start. Moments later, Kaufman was hit in the Chicane, resulting in a long day and a seventh-place finish for himself and Kyle Tilley.

The BMW Performance 200 will be televised on Saturday, Feb. 13 at 10 a.m. ET on FS1.