Steve Streimer and Cameron Evans were overall winners in Touring Car, while Greg Liefooghe and Sean Quinlan were class winners in GT4 SprintX when the SRO Motorsport Group’s series ran at Sonoma Raceway on the first weekend in June.
M240iRs dominated the Touring Car class at Sonoma. Rooster Hall Racing’s Johan Schwartz won on the circuit in the first of TC’s two forty-minute sprints, but was disqualified after a technical violation was identified in post-race inspection. The win went to his Rooster Hall teammate Steve Streimer, who finished ahead of Classic BMW’s Toby Grahovec and Auto Technic Racing’s Robert Nimkoff. In race two, Cameron Evans in the #82 Copart/Bimmerworld M240iR started from the pole and led the entire distance. Grahovec was once again second, losing a drag race with Evans to the finish by a scant .173 seconds. Race one winner Steve Streimer was third.
Mark Pombo in a Mini JCW finished second in the TCA class in both TCR/TCA races; Tyler Maxson won both races in a Mazda MX5.
The GT4 SprintX races included both the national GT4 and GT4 west series, with pro-am and am classes in each. The class win for Liefooghe and Quinlan in the #19 Stephen Cameron Racing M4 GT4 came in the first of two GT4 SprintX 60-minute races; the duo finished second overall and first in the national pro-am class. Auto Technic’s Kris Wilson and John Allen in an M4 GT4 were second in the national Am class. The overall win went to Vesko Kozarov and Jeff Burton, running an Audi R8 in the SprintX west am class. Two ST Racing M4 GT4s scored points in the west pro-am class; Jon Miller and Harry Gottsacker were second, while Samantha Tan and Jason Wolfe were fifth.
In the second SprintX race, run on Sunday, Quinlan and Liefooghe finished third in the national Pro-am class after serving a drive-through penalty for a too-short pit stop. ST’s Miller and Gottsacker were second in Pro-Am West, and Tan and Wolfe were third. The overall and west pro-am wins went to Ken Murillo and Christian Szymczak in the #34 Murillo Racing Mercedes.
The GT4 Sprint series ran two fifty-minute races at Sonoma. The best BMW finishers in race one were M4 GT4 racers Henry Schmitt, seventh in the Am class, and Toby Grahovec, eighth in the Pro class. In the second race Sean Quinlan was third in Am, and Grahovec was ninth in the Pro class. The overall win in race one went to Michael Cooper in a McLaren 570S GT4 running in the pro class, and the race two win went to Ian James, running in the pro class in a Panoz Avezzano GT4.
The #87 Stephen Cameron Racing M6 GT3 driven by Henry Schmitt and Greg Liefooghe was the only BMW in the two ninety-minute Blancpain GT World Challenge America races; the duo finished seventh in the pro-am class in race and one and ninth in race two. The pro-am win in race one went to Mike Hedlund and Dane Cameron in an Acura NSX; in race two the pro-am went to James Sofronas and Dirk Werner in a Porsche 911 GT3.
SRO’s GT4 and TC series run again at Portland International Raceway on July 12-14, and the Blancpain GT series runs again at Watkins Glen on Labor Day weekend. More information on the series along with race reports and videos are available on the SRO Motorsports Group Americas website.—Brian Morgan
[Photo of Cameron Evans in the #82 M240iR (at VIR) courtesy Brian Morgan.]
