Racing a new car in 2010
2010 will be a a very different season than the previous years. This year will be the first year I am not racing in the Speed World Challenge Touring Car series. The team I race for, BimmerWorld Racing, has decided that we need to change our direction and go to a different series. This year we will be racing in the ST class of the Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge, the old Koni Challenge series. In this new series I will have a co-driver as the races are 2.5 hours long or more. My co-driver all season long will be Bill Heumann who is the defending I-Prepared champion in the BMWCCA Club Racing series. Bill and I will be racing in the #81 2009 BMW E90 328i. We will be traveling to Daytona on Friday to start the first official test days in the new car.
This switch to a new series and a new car is going to add some excitement to my racing year. The CTSCC championship will be a battle to the last race for the championship. Several teams have enlisted some of the best drivers in the world to race against Bill and I. With just the test day entry list posted this week there are drivers like Andy Lally, Nic Jonsson, Ryan Eversley, Lawon Aschenbach, my teammate James Clay and that is just to name a few. I like the idea of racing against these guys as it will help to bring out the best drivers in the BimmerWorld team. There is nothing like going against the best and finishing on top. The cars I am racing against will be similar to the ones I raced against before but add to it Honda Civic SIs, Volkswagon GTIs, BMW 328s, MazdaSpeed 3s, Kia Fortes, Volkswagon Jettas. Having a teammate that I get to share the car with is going to make this year a lot different. Luckily Bill and I have worked together in the past so we know how each other drives. One of our biggest challenges will be learning to communicate with each on how we want to set up the cars. Bill might be more comfortable with a car that is loose or oversteering while I might like the opposite. With these races being 2.5 hours long the setup we find will be something both of us can drive fast the entire race. We both will know a lot more about how we will set up the cars after this weekend’s test days. What I am the most excited about is learning more about the strategies of endurance racing and some of the new racecraft that I will need to use as a driver. With World Challenge being a sprint series with a driver driving as hard as he can for 50 minutes, CTSCC will be a lot different. There won’t be as much trading paint. And the race at the end will really be who saves their tires the best. There is a lot of strategy for the team too. When does the crew tell the driver to come in for a pitstop, how much fuel do we add, do we do a 4 tire change or 2 tire change, etc. And then the results can rely on how well the crew executes the pitstop. Do they get all of this along with a driver change completed in 70 seconds, 60 seconds, 30 seconds?
2010 will be a new racing year for the team and I. We are all excited about our new step in racing along with the new strategies we will learn this year. Stay tuned as I update you all on how the test days and the start of the season go this weekend.
Congratulations on the move, Seth. I’m sure this will only help to improve your talent as a driver. Have fun!
Thanks for the update. You are going to do great and I will be following you and pulling for you as always!