BMW race cars seem to be at their best on tracks with long sweeping corners and high-speed straights, which was very evident in the SRO GT4 America and TC America races at the four-mile Road America circuit in Wisconsin—the fastest track on the schedule.
BMW teams were leading the championships in all three GT4 America classes coming into the Road America race. John Capestro-Dubets (JCD) and Zac Anderson were on top of the Silver class points with their #51 Auto Technic Racing M4 GT4, but Anderson was on his own at Road America. JCD had a wreck in the Lamborghini Super Trofeo race at the same circuit just two weeks before and fractured his tailbone and vertebrae, which put him out for the season. Given the difficulty of finding a co-driver in less than two weeks, the series let Anderson race on his own at Road America, with a time penalty added in the pits.
Anderson rose to the challenge. He only qualified in eighth for race one but fought his way up to third place in class behind the winning Mercedes and the second place Random Vandals #92 M4 GT4 driven by Kevin Boehm and Kenton Koch. BMWs also performed well in the other classes, with BimmerWorld Racing drivers James Clay and Charlie Postins winning the Am class in their #36 M4 GT4, followed in second by the #98 Random Vandals BMW of Paul Sparta and Al Carter. BimmerWorld drivers Tyler McQuarrie and James Walker, Jr. finished third in the Pro-Am class in the #82 M4 GT4.
James Clay and Charlie Postins (second from right and right)) won both Am class races at Road America. Al Carter and Paul Sparta (right and second from right) finished on the podium in both.
Anderson started from twelfth in race two, with the starting grid determined by practice two times since the qualifying session was riddled with accidents and many teams were not able to get in fast laps. That wasn’t such a great starting position for Anderson, but it was worse for the Conquest Racing Mercedes team, which won the first race and were the primary contenders to Auto Technic for the Silver class championship. They started from 30th on the grid.
Anderson put in a great drive to move up the order and take the win in race two over the second place Random Vandals M4 GT4 of Boehm and Koch. The STR38 Motorsport BMW of Chandler Hull and Harry Gottsacker finished third in the Silver class to make it an all-BMW podium. BimmerWorld also had a great race, with Tyler McQuarrie and James Walker, Jr. finishing third overall and first in Pro-Am, and James Clay and Charlie Postins getting their second win of the weekend in the Am class. They were joined on the podium by second place finishers Rob Walker and Satakal Khalsa of Auto Technic Racing and Paul Sparta and Al Carter of Random Vandals Racing to make it a BMW sweep of the podium in the Am class as well.
BMW M2 CS cars dominated the TC America TCX class races at Road America, filling the podium in both races. Colin Garrett won both races in his #44 Rooster Hall Racing M2 CS and was followed in second by Lucas Catania in both races in his #26 Rigid Speed Company M2 CS. They were joined on the podium by Aaron Kaplan in race one and Kenny Schmied in race two. It initially looked like the Honda Civic Type-R would be the car to beat in race one, as they were significantly faster than the BMWs in qualifying, but an accident on the first lap took out the two Honda front-runners and both Fast Track Racing M2 CS cars.
Colin Garrett won both TCX class races at Road America.
In the TC class, MINI driver Christian Perocarpi finished in second in race one behind the winning Hyundai Elantra N, while points leader Clayton Williams finished down in seventh after serving a penalty late in the race. Williams rebounded for race two, taking the win over the Hyundai that won the first race, and was followed by teammate Perocarpi in third. MINI driver P.J. Groenke also had a podium finish in race one, with a third-place finish.
Christian Perocarpi was on the TC class podium in both races.
—David Haueter
[Photos courtesy SRO]