Strong Entry and Great Competition in Club Racing at Mid-Ohio

The Tire Rack BMW CCA Club Racing series competed at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in Lexington, Ohio on the weekend of August 14th-16th, hosted by the Buckeye Chapter. There was a strong field of cars for the four races held over the weekend, with an enduro on Friday night, two sprint races on Saturday (including a feature race) and a final sprint race on Sunday.

The high point in terms of entries was for the Enduro on Friday night, which had 46 cars on the entry spread among ten classes. The SpecE46 and PWR3 classes had the most entries over the weekend, with 14 and 12 entries respectively in the enduro. The weather forecast was iffy all weekend at Mid-Ohio but thankfully some of the forecasts were wrong and it ended up being dry almost all weekend. The only wet race was the first sprint race on Saturday afternoon. Rain stopped just minutes before that race, which left competitors with no rain falling but a very wet surface.

Todd Brown won the C-Mod class in the first sprint race on a very wet track and also won the class in the feature race.

C-Modified class cars took three of the overall wins at Mid-Ohio. Charles Harding (shown in top photo) won the enduro overall on Friday night in his C-Mod class E46 M3 after recovering from a stall at the start and also won overall in the final sprint race on Sunday morning after a great race-long battle with Ali Salih in his B-Modified class E92 M3. “Man was that a fun race!,” said Harding after the final race. “I could immediately see Ali’s car was handling quite a bit better than mine on the backside of the course so when I passed him at the race start I had to play defense the entire race. Probably one of the best battles I’ve had in a long while! I don’t think I have ever had a race where I had my eyes on my mirrors as much. Ali was able to get door to door with me a few times but I was able to fend him off for the win.”

Todd Brown won the feature race overall in his C-Mod E46 M3, and also took class wins in C-Mod in the first sprint race and in B-Mod in the enduro, driving with his son Sean in a F82 M4 GT4. Harding and Brown split C-Mod class wins with two apiece, with Brandt Stover finishing second in three of the four races in his E46 M3.

Ryan Osiecki won the first sprint race overall in his E92 M3 that was entered in the B-Mod class.

Ryan Osiecki won the second sprint race overall in his B-Mod class E92 M3 and was followed by two other B-Mod F82 M4 GT4 drivers, with Cory Deeds finishing second and Brooks Friedeman third. Within the B-Mod class itself, there were different winners for each race, with Todd & Sean Brown winning the enduro, Osiecki winning the first sprint race, Brooks Friedeman winning the feature race, and Ali Salih winning the final sprint race on Sunday.

Brooks Friedeman won the feature race in B-Mod in his M4 GT4.

The SpecE46 had some great racing throughout the class in the Mid-Ohio races. Greg Hartman won the enduro on Friday, but Evan Levine won the rest of the races on Saturday and Sunday and Oner Khera finished second in all three. Levine and Kher had some great battles, especially in the opening laps. Joe Fuchs also had a great weekend, finishing on the class podium in every race. John Williams was also on the podium in the enduro in third, and Scott Reiman finished third in the first sprint race on Saturday, setting the fastest lap in that race.

Evan Levine won three of the four races in SpecE46.

There was a lot of car control on display from the SpecE46 drivers in the wet race on Saturday, particularly since those cars don’t have the downforce that some of the other classes do. “It was unbelievably wet at the start, then it got a little bit better and just kind of stayed there,” said Levine. “I kept thinking it would dry out but my last lap time was the same as the times I was setting five laps from the end. It was a fine line between losing seconds, sliding or feeling like you didn’t push enough.”

Greg Hartman took the SpecE46 class win in the enduro.

In the PWR3 class, which had the most entries aside from SpecE46, Jared Randall won both the enduro and the final sprint race on Sunday in his E46 M3. Robert Wellington won the first sprint race and finished second in both the enduro and the final sprint race and third in the feature race in his M235i Racing. In the feature race, Job Niemann won in his E36 M3. Other podium finishers in PWR3 included Dan Feldmann in the enduro, Emrich Stellar in both the first sprint race and the feature, and Theodore Mason in the final sprint race.

Jared Randall won the PWR3 class in the enduro and the final sprint race.

Several of the classes at Mid-Ohio had three cars or less. Brothers-in-law Matt Noonan and Gregory Teese were the only two cars in the I Prepared class, but had fun racing against each other, with Noonan getting three of the class wins and Teese winning the first sprint race. Noonan was also ninth overall in the feature race and the final sprint race. “We started DE events together and started Club Racing together and were always competitive, and then I went and spent money on a nice motor and now he’s got one, so we’re competitive with each other again,” said Noonan.

Gregory Teese won the first sprint race in the I Prepared class.

In PWR2, Tom Larmondra won three of the races in his Z4 M Coupe and Mirril McMullen won the feature race in his E36 323i. In PWR4, Ryan Kerfien won the class in every race but the enduro in his E46 330ci, while Allan Lewis won the enduro in his E46 M3 and finished second in the first and final sprint races. Single-entry class winners included Michael Saul in I Sport, Dave Coll in SpecE36 and Michael Wetzel in M2 Spec. It’s notable that Wetzel finished in the top ten overall in three of the races, including fifth overall in the enduro.

Ryan Kerfien notched up three class wins in the PWR4 class in an E46 330ci.

The Mid-Ohio circuit is one of several great drivers’ tracks on the Club Racing schedule. “It’s a great track and it was fun to finally do it,” said Evan Levine, who was racing there for the first time. “It’s fast and flowy and just technical enough and is super fun. It really rewards pushing through some of the fast, blindish corners in the crest of hills.” Gregory Teese was also racing at Mid-Ohio for the first time. “It was a lot of fun,” he said. “Coming into turn five there, that whole corner, that’s a lot of fun and just figuring out the whole Madness section afterwards, with where you want the car to be to set it up.” Matt Noonan, also a first-timer, summed it up well. “Mid-Ohio is everything you want from a track,” he said. “I’ll have to come every year.”

Brandt Stover finished second in C-Mod in the enduro driving with Johan Schwartz and also finished second in class in the first and last sprint races.

Scott Ontjes was the Event Chair for the Mid-Ohio race weekend, the Competition Steward was Bruce Heersink and tech was handled by Tim Bradford, Bruce Smith and Jeff Traenkner. Timing was done by Roland Nieves. The Spirit of Club Racing award was given to Tim Bradford in recognition for his tireless contributions for improving race operations, specifically grid management.

The next Tire Rack BMW CCA Club Racing weekend will take place on the Lightning circuit at New Jersey Motorsports Park on August 1st-2nd, followed by Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course on August 14th-16th.

—David Haueter
[Photos by David Haueter]