BMW CCA Club Racing Season Opens at VIR, F32 435i Makes Debut

The Tire Rack BMW CCA Club Racing series opened the 2026 season at the beautiful and fast Virginia International Raceway (VIR), with a set of three sprint races and a feature race over three days. Hosted by the Tarheel Chapter, there were 38 Spec E46 entries that took the green flag in the first race along with 36 entries in the multiple other classes that raced together. The Spec E36 and PWR3 classes had the most entries outside of Spec E46, with eight entries apiece.

Jesse Clark won the first race in SpecE46 and finished second in two others.

There was some fantastic racing in the popular Spec E46 class, with the top half-dozen cars in the class running closely together and some other tight racing going on throughout the field. Evan Levine and Jesse Clark had some real duals going on in all four of the races, with Clark taking the first sprint race win on Friday night with Levine finishing second, and Levine (shown in top photo) winning the rest of the three races with Clark second in two of those races. “The racing is a lot of fun, and it’s always good racing against Jesse,” said Levine. “I love how close the Spec E46 racing is and Jesse and I just can’t get away from each other. It’s fast and clean and that’s what we like.” Oner Khera also had a very strong weekend in Spec E46, with three podium finishes among the four races, including a second place behind Levine in the feature race on Saturday. Isaac Beekman also made it to the podium in the Sunday Sprint race and finished fourth in two of the other three races.

Oner Khera had three podium finishes in SpecE46.

If you like multi-class racing, you would enjoy the non-Spec E46 races, which feature a wide variety of BMWs ranging from the E30 3 Series up through the more modern Motorsport-built M2 CS and F82 generation M4 GT4. The E36 and E46 M3’s are still popular in the series, and Todd Brown’s Rooster Hall Racing E46 was the fastest of them all, as he was off and running ahead of the field in every race, winning overall and in the C-Mod class. Three of the wins were at the wheel of his #800 E46 M3, that puts out 475hp at the crank and weighs just 2,640 pounds empty. Brown switched to his #846 E46 M3 for the last race on Sunday, as the #800 had an air fitting leak on the transmission from the pneumatic sequential pump. “These high-strung cars sometimes have issues,” said Brown. The #846 is not quite as dialed in as the #800, but it did the job.”

Todd Brown won all four races overall and in C-Mod.

Besides Brown, the top finishers in C-Mod were (mostly) in the top few cars overall. Charles Harding was on the C-Mod podium three times and third overall in the first sprint race, while Kirk Olsen was second in C-Mod and third overall in the feature race. Jason Phillips was behind the wheel of the only non-BMW in the field with his Porsche Cayman (which ran in the exhibition class) and finished second overall in three out of the four races.

Jason Phillips was the only non-BMW in the field and finished second overall in three races and third in the other.

The Spec E36 and PWR3 classes had solid number of entries. John Wilkins took the win in all four races in the Spec E36 class, with John Alemanni finishing second in the first two races and third in the last two. Tom Tice was also on the Spec E36 podium in three of the races, finishing third in the second sprint race and second in the feature race and the final sprint race. Dave Coll also made it to the podium, finishing third in the first Sprint race.

John Wilkins won all four races in the SpecE36 class.

One of the highlights of the weekend was the racing debut of the F32 generation 435i, which is sure to grow more popular over the next few years. BimmerWorld had two race-ready 435i’s at the track, with one entry for Phil Wurz of BimmerWorld and another for Evan Levine. Wurz won the first race in the car in the PWR3 class and finished second in the feature race, while Levine took the PWR3 win in the second sprint race. Neither car ran in the final sprint race on Sunday. “The car is doing fantastic,” said Wurz. “I feel like I’m able to push the car a lot more now, and it’s giving me more confidence. The brakes and suspension and everything are really starting to work well together, and I’m pretty happy with the lap times we’re doing.” Job Nieman also took a PWR3 win in the both the feature race on Saturday and the final sprint race on Sunday in his E36 M3.

BImmerWorld debuted the F32 435i and had two wins, one each for Phil Wurz and Evan Levine.

In the PWR2 class, Ian Kimbrough won two of the four races, while Stephen Grayson and Robert Chrysler scored one win apiece. Sripathi Haputantri was the lone entry in the PWR4 class, as was George Deniker in K-Prepared (E30 3 Series) and rookie Timothy Skeuse in J-Prepared (E30 M3). Michael Saul had one class competitor to race against in I-Sport in the first race but was on his own in the last three. The B-Modified class had only two cars in class for three of the four races and one in the final race, with Cory Deeds winning all four in his F82 M4 GT4. Deeds was also second overall behind Todd Brown in the second sprint race and the feature race.

Cory Deeds drove his M4 GT4 to two second place overall finishes and swept B-Modified.

The M2 Spec and I-Prepared classes had three entries in all four races. Krista Davis won three of the four M2 Spec class wins and finished second in another, with Michael Kerner getting the win in the second sprint race. Davis is racing the M2 after spending previous years racing an E46 M3 in C-Mod. “I bought the car last year and did two race weekends toward the end of the season and I’m still trying to figure it out,” said Davis. “The E46 M3 (that she raced previously in C-Mod) was very nimble and responsive, where the M2 CS is more comfortable but also somewhat insulating. It’s also around 800 pounds heavier, which is a big change for me.” In I-Prepared, Jeff Bennett took all four of the class wins in his E36.

Krista Davis won three of four races in the M2 Spec class.

All in all, it was a great opening weekend for the start of the 2026 Club Racing season. “The weather was amazing and everybody was happy and had a good time,” said Club Racing Chairman Mirril McMullen. “It’s fun running with other racing organizations and see the old cars out there with the newer cars, and we had two days of club race school and five of them are out there racing. It’s good to have new racers coming in, and it was a great weekend to knock the rust off and get ready for the season.” John Alemanni was the Event Chair for the VIR race weekend, Ross Karlin was the Competition Steward and Larry Fletcher was in charge of timing and scoring. Tech stewards were April Massagee, Hunter Dyer, Tim Bradford, Steve Whitcomb and David Weaver.

The next race weekend on the Club Racing schedule is at Summit Point Raceway in West Virginia from May 1st-3rd.

—David Haueter
[Photos by David Haueter]