On the 29th of July we were off to the airport again for round 3 of the production car championship, hungry for another round win.

Straight into fridays practice we were onto the pace with Luke Searle punching out consistent lap times within moments of being on the track. After the first practice we felt like we could change the suspension a small amount to better suit the layout of Queensland raceway.

Going into Saturdays qualifying we were somewhat confident we would be at the pointy end of the grid, unfortunately, after qualifying well. We had some dramas that saw us starting at the back of the grid.

Full of dissapointment we soldiered on, more determined than ever to get everything right the pit stops had to be perfect, the driver changes had to be perfect and our strategy had to be spot on (luckily we have Paul Morris who is a master strategist)

This race was a little bit different in that it was entitled “the fight in the night”  Off Luke went to pre grid in a well set up car…. with standard headlights. Starting from the back of the grid Luke managed to pick off the vast majority of the field within the first few laps, ending up in the top 5 by lap 5, even after a few bumps coming up through the field and the power steering going into limp mode and having to man handle the car with no power steering. Paul then jumped into the car and continued to maintain the pace on less than average tyres. By end of the race we were lucky enough to come home with a 4th place and a bruised and battered car.

Going into sunday, we tried our best to back it all up, with Paul starting and struggling with traction control issues, we sorted it out and got back into it, racing back into 1st, we took the gamble during pit stop not to do a tyre change which looked to be paying off, until a safety car came out and tightened up the whole field, once the safety car went in we simply didn’t have enough grip out of the corners and got passed, putting us back to 4th for the finish.

All in all the weekend wasn’t the result we were looking for, but we all learnt something. Sometimes you can’t look at an outright win, but you can look at the positives that can be gained over the weekend, we learnt what would be necessary to be more competitive in a night race (better lighting!!) we learnt that BMWs can take an absolute beating and still come out on top.

Until next time

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