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Seth Thomas and James Clay finish BimmerWorld BMW in 7th and 9th at Sebring |
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Written by Jeff Seabrook
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Friday March 17, 2006 |
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Sebring, Florida (March 17, 2006):
Seth Thomas of Cumming Georgia got an impressive launch with his BimmerWorld
BMW 325 from his 5th place starting position and as the World Challenge
Touring Car field headed into Sebring’s ample turn one he was all over the
eventual race winner Bill Auberlen.
“He (Thomas) started to make a move on me into one, he had such a good run I
actually had to close the door on him and hope he wasn’t going to turn me
around,” Auberlen said of the start.
“I thought about it” Seth said about diving inside of Auberlen into turn
one. “But then I thought that I would follow Bill around and see what he is
up to and see what it is like. I almost went for it, but if you hesitate
you don’t have it and I hesitated.”
Seth was then left to try to hold off the elite of the Touring Car world as
Randy Pobst, Pierre Kleinubing, Charles Espenlaub and defending Touring Car
champion Peter Cunningham all wanted by.
Unfortunately a brake lockup later made getting by all too easy!
“I came in a little hot (into turn 10), a little bit of lockup in the front
and went off the track a little bit,” Seth recalled. “No big deal, I
recovered fairly well. But the car went into an over steer situation under
braking after that.”
“It was tough, those guys are good,” Seth said with a big smile!
Seth would later fall out of the top ten after a spin in turn 17.
“I went into 17 and it was one of those deals where the rear end starts
leading the front around,” Seth said philosophically. “What you do. After
that I adjusted the brake bias and it was fine and I could settle down and
make up positions.”
“It was still a fast car right to the end. I could have hung with those
boys,” Seth concluded of his weekend. “I’ll be back up there. Randy and
Bill and those guys had better watch out because I’ll be back!”
James Clay also got off to a good start and rallied from a 15th starting
position to finish his BimmerWorld BMW in 9th place.
“I was still haunted by my last minute adjustment before qualifying,” James
said of the early part of the race. “I am still trying to get the brakes
all dialed in. I still couldn’t come into the braking zones with authority
until half way through the race. I caught back up and it was just a matter
of 10 to 20 feet every braking zone because the Performance Friction Brakes
were working well once it was dialed in.”
James got into the top ten once but had to do it all over again as he came
up on the short end of three wide on a track that seldom allows two cars to
race side by side.
“It got a little dicey when we went through Bishops bend 3 wide and I got
shuffled back a bit because of that, but the car was really strong so I did
get past 6 cars and I’ll take that but it would have nice to have finished
further up.”
“It is amazing that every year we run less yellow laps,” James said of not
getting a full course caution that would have pulled him up with the
leaders. “To run this race under full green is great for the series but it
is tough not to have a yellow when you are trying to make up ground!”
Unfortunately for Paul Goldman his first World Challenge race wasn’t to be
as a rear axle broke when he tried to launch the #37 BimmerWorld BMW at the
start and the car never moved more than a couple of feet.
Because he never actually reached the start/finish line he was classified as
a non starter for the race.
“It was unfortunate, but that is what racing is all about,” Paul said after
the race.
“It isn’t anyone’s fault it is just bad luck,” Paul added. “The crew did a
great job this weekend. I would have liked to have been able to run the
race but that is the way things go sometimes.”
“It looks like we are going to have to take a look at those axles and time
replace them,” James Clay said of Goldman’s problem. “It is a shame that he
was a DNS (did not start).”
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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Thursday December 04, 2008
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