BimmerWorld’s James Clay has announced that the team will return to IMSA competition in 2019 with the #82 Grand Sport class M4 GT4. Clay will drive the car along with Devin Jones.
Last season, Clay and co-driver Tyler Cooke won the Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge season finale at Road Atlanta, and BimmerWorld finished third in the Grand Sport team championship. This year, in the newly-named Michelin Pilot Challenge series, Devin Jones will move up from the BimmerWorld #81 328i that he and Nick Galante drove to four race wins, the drivers’ championship, and the team championship in the final year of the Street Tuner class.
Jones said, “We really had a great year with BimmerWorld in 2018. Nick and I won four races, had nine podiums, and won the ST championship in its final year. That was a big deal to us and for my career. I enjoyed working with James and the whole BimmerWorld staff and wanted to come back for 2019 and drive the BMW M4 GT4 and try for another championship. I can’t wait to get back on track.”
Clay notes, “We’re still finalizing details of our other initiatives for 2019, but we’re going to be quite busy in 2019. IMSA has been our home for almost a decade and this GS program is important to me, and I think the best racing in the country currently. But these BMW M4 GT4 cars can be raced anywhere in the world, and we’ve just picked up some new M240i Racing cars as well, and of course, the monster Pikes Peak car we’ve been building for over a year, as well as several customer programs. We’ve spent the winter recharging and preparing, and everyone here is fired up to get the season fired up at Daytona!”
Beyond IMSA and Pikes Peak, it is likely that BimmerWorld cars will appear in World Challenge in 2019.
But first the #82 car will run at Daytona; it will appear in the January 4–6 Roar Before The 24 test days, and it will run in the four-hour Michelin Pilot Challenge season opener on January 25.—Brian Morgan