BMW racers won three classes in the 2018 edition of the 25 Hours of Thunderhill run on December 1 and 2 on the northern California circuit.
The EO class win and sixth overall went to the El Diablo Motorsports E36 M3 driven by Lance Boicelli, Scott Smith, Brian Ghidinelli and Andrie Hartanto. Another E36 M3, the Dasboot Motorsports car, finished second. The 2018 class win was the fourth for El Diablo.
The E1 class win and tenth overall went to the Moorewood Creative E46 330i driven by William Shawhan, John Borchelt, Dan Riley, and Shaun Webster. The car had been engaged in a race-long battle for the class win with the ART Racing 2 E46 330i driven by Ari Balogh, Natasha Balogh, Greg Liefooghe, and Sylas Montgomery. The Art 2 car finished second. The hard-fought win was the fourth in a row in the 25-hour race for Moorewood.
The win in the E2 class and fifteenth overall went to the HQ Autosport E82 128i driven by Paul Quatrocchi, Peter Engels, Travis Weltzien, Mark Mitchell, Ralph Warren, and Peter Czajkowski. The car dominated the class, finishing 67 laps ahead of the second place Shift Up Now E30 325i, piloted by Karen Salvaggio, Mandy McGee, Kristina Esposito, and Lynn Kehoe.
Shift Up Now warrants an interesting side note as well, as their other entry, a Mazda MX-5, was piloted by Ashley Freiberg, Shea Holbrook, and Pippa Mann; all legendary drivers, with Freiberg being a familiar name to BMW fans as she competed in BMWs for several years in the IMSA Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge. It also makes the Shift Up Now team entirely #ladydriven, a growing trend during this year’s 25 Hours of Thunderhill.
For the fourth consecutive year the overall win went to the Toyo Tires/Flying Lizard Motorsports team; the team’s Porsche 911 RSR was driven to victory by Charlie Hayes, Johannes van Overbeek, Wolf Henzler, Andy Wilzoch, and Justin Marks. —Brian Morgan