After a six-week break since the last race at Sebring in mid-March, the IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge series traveled to beautiful Laguna Seca Raceway in Monterey, California for the third round of the season. The Turner Motorsport duo of Dillon Machavern and Luca Mars left California with their first win of the year and the points lead in the GS class championship.
There were seven M4 GT4 EVO entries among the total field of 31 cars in the GS (Grand Sport) class. The Turner car wasn’t the fastest BMW in qualifying – that honor went to the #39 CarBahn with Peregrine Racing entry of Sean McAlister and Jeff Westphal, with McAlister qualifying fifth, just three-tenths off the pole time of the #13 Ford Mustang. Dillon Machavern qualified eighth in the #95 Turner car and was the only other BMW in the top 10.
The #27 Auto Technic Racing BMW finished sixth. The #92 Random Vandals car finished in fifteenth.
A promising start unraveled quickly for the #39 CarBahn BMW in their home race. McAlister was hit on the first lap by a Toyota Supra and spun, losing several positions (the Supra was penalized for the incident), but McAlister was penalized later on for contact with an Aston Martin as he was pushing hard to recover lost positions. The sister #37 car had a passenger door what wouldn’t stay closed and required an extra stop in the pits. There were a lot of incidents in general in the race, with two cars ending up flipping over at two different times which led to long caution periods.
Dillon Machavern (on left in yellow) and Luca Mars celebrate on the podium.
Through all the chaos, Machavern moved up into fifth in the #95 Turner BMW and then into third with 75 minutes left in the race. Another caution with a little over an hour left led to pit stops, which was a key moment in the race for the Turner team. Machavern came into the pits in third to hand the car over to Luca Mars, and a fantastic pit stop by the Turner crew put Mars out in front of the leading Mustang. Mars then did a great job fending off pressure from the #13 Mustang and the #44 McLaren to get the win. “I’m very proud of the team, the result speaks for itself, but the team did an amazing job in the pits – over four seconds faster than the competition, which moved us to the front, and Luca was consistent and could do no wrong to stay out front,” said team owner Will Turner.
Robby Foley and Vin Barletta finished in fifth.
The win by the #95 car was the fiftieth win for BMW in the GS class, and 31 of those wins came from Turner cars. It was also the second straight win in this race for Mars, who won last year in a Porsche. The #96 Turner car of Robby Foley and Vin Barletta had a solid race to finish fifth after starting the race in 24th. The #27 Auto Technic Racing BMW M4 GT4 Evo of Stevan McAleer and Austin Krainz finished right behind the #96 in sixth, and the #38 ST Racing by Random Vandals BMW of Bill Auberlen and Samantha Tan finished eighth.
Bill Auberlen and Samantha Tan finished in the top ten in eighth.
Next up for the Michelin Pilot Challenge series is a four-hour race at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course on June 5th-7th.
—David Haueter
[Photos by Kyle van Hoften]
