BimmerWorld Sebring SPEED Touring Car Event Summary

BimmerWorld Racing shows great speed and development with best-ever qualifying; looks for better luck in the next race.

3/20/07

BimmerWorld BMW driver/owner James Clay and team mate Seth Thomas had a promising start to the 2007 SPEED World Challenge Touring Car season cut short in the race by contact and electrical gremlins. Prior to the green lights ushering in the start of round one at Sebring International Raceway in Sebring, Florida, the BimmerWorld team were poised to capitalize on months of hard work that had paid off in qualifying.

With Thomas slotted in 4^th place and Clay in 6^th, the year of development on the team’s unique BMW E90 chassis had obviously been on target. Thomas was excited to get the season underway from the second row of the grid, “We had a long haul to take the E90 last year from being unproven to where it sits right now. Our crew sacrificed so many hours non-stop since the last race in 2006 to make our BMW’s as fast as they’ve shown here at Sebring.”

James Clay was just as bullish about the team’s progress, “Last year wasn’t representative of what BimmerWorld can do; we took a new car and spent a year having to find out what makes it tick, and what needed to be done to it to make it a front runner. We still have a lot more work to do, but I think we’re on the right path to start showing our true potential.”

That potential was manifested in a strong start by both cars, with Thomas challenging the lead cars with a daring move around the outside of turn one at the start. Clay’s day was nearly over after the first few corners, “A Dodge Neon stuck his nose in on me in the exit of turn one—it was light contact, but enough to cause a tire to go down immediately.  By turn five, the car was really scary. I eased it around into the pits and got a new tire on the car, but the race was going full speed and I never had a chance to catch back up to the field.”

Thomas had an even more fraught day with intermittent electrical problems causing his engine to shut off unexpectedly. “I got bounced around pretty good during the race, but no one hit me on purpose—I was battling for the top five, but then I’d lose power and whomever was behind me would have to take avoiding action. I think every corner of my car got hit as a result. We’ll get this issue solved, and will look to go hard after it at Utah .”

The next round of the SPEED World Challenge Touring Car season takes place May 17^th-19^th, at Miller Motorsports Park , in Tooele , Utah .

Broadcast of the 1^st round of the SPEED Touring Car championship can be seen on SPEED Channel, Sunday, March 25^th, 1:30PM , EST.

More information about the team, cars, and drivers can be found at www.bimmerworldracing.com