Turner Motorsport on Podium in Michelin Pilot Challenge at Sebring

The second round of the IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge series took place at Sebring International Raceway in Florida on Friday afternoon, as a support race for the big dance, the 12 Hours of Sebring on Saturday. BMW was represented by seven entries in the GS class, and two of them made it into the top five.

Two of the BMW entries were taken out immediately at the start of the race. When the green flag flew, a couple of the cars in the tightly packed field made contact just as everyone was hard on the gas, which set off a chain reaction that took out nine cars and led to a half-hour caution period. Two of those cars were BMWs, the #37 CarBahn with Peregrine Racing entry and the #96 Turner Motorsport car. The second #39 CarBahn entry, which is one of the faster BMWs in the field, also had some damage from the pileup and retired after eight laps.

Of the BMWs that remained, the #95 Turner Motorsport M4 GT4 EVO of Luca Mars and Dillon Machavern (shown above) was the most well-placed for a strong result. They had started in fifth and stayed in the top five once the mess was cleaned up. By midpoint of the race, they were up to fourth and the #27 Auto Technic Racing entry of Stevan McAleer and Austin Krainz was running in the top ten in eighth place.

With 30 minutes left, the #95 was running in third and the #27 was right behind in fourth. Machavern held onto third in the #95 car as the race wound down while McAleer was passed by the #54 Toyota with less than five minutes left and had to settle for fifth. The race win went to the #44 McLaren Artura GT4, followed by the #57 Mercedes-AMG in second. The #38 ST Racing with Random Vandals BMW of Bill Auberlen and Samanta Tan finished in twelfth, with the #92 Random Vandals BMW of Nicky Hays and Robert Megennis a few spots further back in fifteenth.

Bill Auberlen, who is racing exclusively in the Michelin Pilot Challenge series this year, was one of six drivers named to the IMSA Hall of Fame at Sebring. Auberlen is the winningest driver in IMSA history, with 65 class victories. He’s a three-time IMSA champion and has won all the big races at Daytona, Sebring, Road Atlanta and Watkins Glen multiple times. “It’s a real honor to be inducted into the Hall of Fame,” said Auberlen. “It has nothing to do with me, it has to do with everyone I’ve driven with and that I’ve worked with, and that helped me get here. I’m truly thankful to all of them and to my crew guys, my teammates and my family.”

The next IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge race will be at Laguna Seca Raceway in California on the weekend of May 1st-3rd.

—David Haueter
[Photos by Jon van Woerden, podium photo courtesy LAT Images]