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Seth Thomas Qualifies BimmerWorld BMW 325 in 5th at Sebring |
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Written by Jeff Seabrook
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Thursday March 16, 2006 |
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Sebring, Florida (March 16, 2006):
Seth Thomas of Cumming Georgia qualified 5th today for Friday’s SCCA SPEED World Challenge Touring Car Series race here at Sebring in his BimmerWorld BMW 325.
Seth has said that his primary focus of improvement for the coming season would be qualifying better as in past seasons poor qualifying efforts have hurt his chances to finish well in the ultra competitive World Challenge series.
Today Seth took a first big step as his time of 2:20.240 put him right at the front of the 33 car grid which will put him right in the heat of the action as Seth looks to record a solid top five finish.
“This was the best qualifying session I have ever had,” said Seth Thomas with a huge smile. “This car was phenomenal, it was just really setup. It was perfect. Everything just clicked into place.”
“I turned as good a lap as I could on the first one,” Seth continued. “I did try to take another run at going faster because I felt that there were a couple of spots where I felt I could improve my time a little bit, but it didn’t help. The times were pretty close but it (the second lap) wasn’t as fast!”
James Clay of Blacksburg Virginia wasn’t quite as fortunate as James had to struggle late into the qualifying session just to get into the top 15 as
brake bias problems caused James to spin during his first qualifying lap and almost repeat that spin on his second try.
“After the last practice session yesterday we made the fatal error of adjusting something on the car and I didn’t get my brake bias back to where it needed to be,” James Clay said. “I spun on the first lap and almost spun on the second lap so I spent the qualifying session adjusting my brake
bias.”
The Toyo tires used by the series usually only provide one or possibly two extra fast laps for qualifying before stabilizing so James, his one or two hot laps gone had to gamely stay on the track adjusting his brake bias to finally turn in a late lap that would start him in 15th position.
“I got it dialed in and then I got in a respectable time but it is not where I wanted to be,” James concluded of the day. “But the car should be good to go for the race!”
Paul Goldman, of Menlo Park California, qualified his BimmerWorld BMW 325 in 30th position after his first ever World Challenge qualifying session.
“I must say for my first SCCA Pro race and my first pro qualifying session it was a very, very unique experience,” Paul Goldman reported after the session. “The word I might use was chaotic, but it was certainly fun!”
“My strategy, because I was out there about last, was to go out there, open up a space and let the traffic get ahead of me,” Paul said of his qualifying run. “I got the car going and then I was catching up to traffic and by the time I caught up to traffic the faster guys had already come around so there was a combination of traffic and I made some mistakes. It was hard to get some clean laps in.”
Paul, while a bit disappointed in his qualifying results was upbeat about Friday’s race and feels that he and his BimmerWorld BMW “have a lot more in us, so we will be looking to move up during the race”.
Round 1 of the SPEED World Challenge Touring Car Series is set to start on Friday at 11:25 AM here at Sebring International Raceway and will be broadcast on SPEED/TV on Sunday March 19th at 3 PM.
BimmerWorld is a leading retailer of high performance street and racing BMW parts. For additional information about BimmerWorld and their extensive line of BMW performance products go to their website at: www.BimmerWorld.com
Additional BimmerWorld Racing information and bios are available at: www.BimmerWorldRacing.com
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Friday January 09, 2009
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