SUCH - Tarheel Chapter BMW Car Club of America

Finally, we must mention one other ‘Woody’
candidate: Dennis Pippy. He has so far consistently
shown up in his #100 M3T car at every CR
event within reasonable reach of his NC home
base – and usually has won his class too. He did
so in June, at NJMP, where he collected two wins
in two races. (He chose to sit out the third sprint,
but apparently all his class rivals did likewise.)
Since that event used NJMP’s Thunderbolt circuit,
he’ll have a chance to do a repeat on the track’s
other course, the Lightning, this month, when it’s
the Jerzey Boys’ turn again to host a race weekend
there.
As for last month’s other CR offerings – BeaveRun
and Summit Point – those are not on our
docket for this report (deadlines, you know), but
we’ll hazard an opinionated prediction: Quite
likely, several local road warriors, including some
of our ‘Woody’ candidates, showed up at Summit
Point; but judging by the format of the Pittsburgh
event and last year’s results, attendance by local
drivers wasn’t in the cards.
On the other hand, our favorite local pro
team, BimmerWorld (BW) hasn’t had a days’ rest
since we forget when. And if you’ve been keeping
track of their assault on the Continental Tire
Sports Car Challenge (CTSCC) series, you know
it’s been a tough season for them so far.
To recap: After last year’s stellar team record
with just two cars in the Street Tuner (ST) class,
team owner James Clay started this season with
four entries, including two new E92 V8s in the
brutally competitive Grand Sport (GS) class. But
the team’s high expectations have met with scant
success, as their season has turned into a School
of Hard Knocks, literally and fi guratively speaking.
As neither the ST cars nor the new GS cars
have had any real reliability problems, we could
feel paranoid enough to suggest that that whole
Grand-Am/CTSCC racing environment had it in for
BimmerWorld. Objectively speaking, though, the
problems seem to have been the result of several
factors – perhaps some bad luck; but also having
to play catch-up when you’re a couple of development
years behind the competition; the fact that
any element of surprise (which may have helped
BW last year) was gone; generally tougher competition;
and Grand-Am’s fi ddling with rules (e.g.
rpm limits) which applied to everyone but may
have affected BW more adversely. Be that as it
may, podium fi nishes have remained out of reach
for BW drivers of both the ST E90s and the GS
E92s since our last report on the race at VIR.
In late May, in the short-track race at Lime
Rock (which had the STs and GSs run separately)
the #81 328i of John Capestro-Dubets (JCD) and
Greg Liefooghe came closest to that elusive goal,
with a 7th-place fi nish in class. And the #78 GS
car of Bob Michaelian and Ken Wilden actually
ran in the lead pack before losing considerable
ground due to contact – and fi nishing tenth.
A week after Lime Rock, the team ended up
with similar results at Watkins Glen. (Clay’s press
release actually labeled the race “educational”!)
The only bright spot was, once again, # 81. Engine
problems had kept JCD from qualifying, so
he started from the tail-end of the pack. Then,
soon after the green fl ag, he got hit and had to pit
with a fl at tire. So he got back in the fray and was
working his way through the crowd toward the
front – when he got hit again and suffered another
fl at! The repairs lost him the lead lap – but upon
rejoining the race (and aided by a yellow) he managed
to regain the lost lap, something pretty unheard
of on a long track like the Glen. Liefooghe
then took the car to a tenth-place fi nish in ST
(24th overall), an improvement of 37 spots (not
counting all the positions lost and regained during
this Odyssey)!
For the Road America race in June, with Michaelian
and Wilden taking a planned break, Clay
reshuffl ed his driver teams. He handed #78 to
Liefooghe with rookie Lyonel Kent as co-driver,
while JCD in the #81 car got another rookie, CR
grad Nathaniel Sparks as his new co-driver. It
would have been interesting to see how these
new pairings would’ve worked out. But that hard
knocks factor interfered.
Kent got taken out just six laps into the race,
so Liefooghe never got to race the V8. And Sparks
also got knocked around, which took #81 out of
contention not quite halfway through the race,