| 
| Bill Auberlen and the Turner Motorsport 2019 Season
If you watched the Rolex 24hrs of Daytona, you saw what we at Turner Motorsport hope to be the start of an incredible season of racing. An unfortunate shock failure kept us from finishing at the front of the field, but the M6 behaved fantastically for the entire race. The performance of the car, however, was only part of the equation that we think will lead to a successful season. In the driver’s seat for the entire year will be none other than Bill Auberlen, the pilot with the most ever wins driving a BMW. The combination of a great car and an exceptional driver familiar with the team and BMW platform will ideally offer us a distinct advantage, so we wanted to hear what the driver himself thinks about the plan for 2019. After Daytona, Bill was kind enough to take some time and speak with me about what has brought him to this point in his career and to offer some insight into what we can expect from the Turner Motorsport team this year. |
|
Speaking to Bill is engaging. His list of accomplishments in motorsports is staggering, and to hear it from the man himself makes the conversation quite surreal. Taking a break from working on a boat project, Bill spoke with me this week and recounted his racing history. While he may be a fairly high-profile driver with whom many of you are familiar, his career is still something inspiring to hear.
Like many successful drivers, Bill has never been far from a set of tools or a race car. His father immigrated to America from Germany with the aspiration of becoming a successful driver. He began racing Porsches, which allowed Bill to grow up in an environment that fueled his fascination with mechanics and driving. As early as eight years old, Bill was with his father at races and track days, tools in hand, helping maintain the Porsche. |
|
From helping every weekend as a child to driving the trucks across the country, building engines, transmissions, and software tuning, Bill was exposed to every aspect of racing through an amateur level to professional events. His drive to learn everything was partially from his own motivation, but equally a requirement. He and his father were limited in their budget, so by necessity and interest, Bill learned the entirety of his craft inside and outside of a car.
When he was old enough, Bill’s father began to let him race the Porsche. After a few races, His father reminded him that the Porsche, truck, and trailer were not his to have, though he could continue to use them. The need for his own race car prompted Bill to began searching for something suitable to build. With his knowledge and experience, the first car he assembled was unsurprisingly the one that garnered attention from sponsors and manufacturers.
After a brief search, Bill found a Mazda shell in Greenville, South Carolina. A cross-country trip to retrieve the car yielded a new project that Bill was eager to begin. He and two friends completed the car and, with help from Mazda, built a racing engine to meet his expectations on the track.
Money be damned, Bill and his friends spent all their time at the track with that car. Hotel hopping from event to event, Bill proved himself as a driver and engineer by consistently stacking wins. For him, the most important part of the adventure was exclusively getting to the next race and winning. With just a few friends, his early team was racing in IMSA working insane hours to remain in the competition.
After each win, Bill became more interesting to manufacturers. The inevitable happened quickly, and Bill was approached by Mazda with an offer to drive for their factory team. The graduation from his grassroots team to a professional organization was the move that springboarded his racing career. He spent time with Mazda, Chrysler, Ferrari, and eventually returned to Mazda, where he continued to improve as a driver. |
|
By 1995, BMW had entered the field and was consistently losing to Bill in his Mazda. When Bill heard they were looking for a new driver, he quickly jumped at a chance to approach them with a proposition. From then on, Bill has been racing primarily for BMW and developed an early relationship with the Turner Motorsport team. His name has appeared on the side of Turner Motorsport cars for years, but this year, it will be on the car for every race.
With an upcoming full season of racing, I was naturally excited to hear what Bill expected from the year and what his experiences from these most recent seasons would bring to the team. According to Bill, the M6 is a strong car that gives him confidence in the team’s abilities. With Bill on the roster for the duration of 2019, the team has a clear path to a successful season. Serving as the conduit between BMW and Turner Motorsport, Bill is able to transfer his experiences at the highest level of racing and that dedication to perfection the team needs to win. |
|
His attention to detail has allowed him to push past ‘good enough’ and achieve exceptional results. Bill has spent his last few years at the forefront of technology, which will give a noticeable advantage to the team this year. Since he is already familiar with the new Michelin tires required by the new regulations, Bill is not going to start the season as cold as some of the competition. That, paired with his highly mechanical background, give the team the ability to communicate quickly and effectively. As mentioned by the Crew Chief, Don Salama, that critical component to an exemplary driver is the knowledge to relate highly mechanical details about the car’s behavior on the track to give the mechanics precise information to make adjustments. The sped-up learning curve is a highly competitive advantage unique to Bill and his experience with BMW and the Turner Motorsport team, which we are excited to witness over the next few months.
Bill is extremely confident in this season. According to his predictions, it will be a result of his background and Don’s ability to call races. Bill specifically paused to praise this characteristic Don has to strategize a win. The motivation that rests solely on the feeling of victory is probably not a unique one in motorsports, but for both Don and Bill, their singular shared focus is on the racing. The constant planning, years of experience, and almost telepathic connection between the two will undoubtedly play major roles in the team’s successes.
After his predictions, I couldn’t help but ask about some of the differences in the past few years of IMSA compared to when Bill began racing professionally. Understandably, this level of racing is considerably more serious. While he mentioned his early days were definitely filled with more smiles and excitement at races, Bill has gravitated towards Turner Motorsport because of their shared outlook on racing as pure enjoyment. The motivation from all parts of the team is clearly the act of racing, with the ultimate goal of winning, and nothing else.
In the past, there was a much larger box, as Bill called it, to strategize and outsmart the competition within. Bill recounted that the most fun he had racing was when he was able to use pit stop strategy, planning, and cunning to win races. Now, with the high level of technology and restrictive rules, there is much less room to be creative as a strategist from a human element perspective. The racing, according to Bill, comes down to the balance of performance in the cars and how the team uses the same tools as everyone else to squeeze out a victory. | 
| | Bill is now preparing for his next race, which will take place at his favorite course, the Mobil 1 12 Hours of Sebring. With a long history of success at that track, we are excited to see the Turner Motorsport M6 take the field with Bill behind the wheel. A truly exceptional driver, motivated gear-head, and all-around astounding person, Bill Auberlen is sure to keep us on the edges of our seats from the moment the green flag drops until he crosses the finish line. Stay tuned to Turner Motorsport as we follow Bill through the season behind the wheel of the M6 as he progresses through the season. |
|
Camber/Caster Adjustments and New Turner Motorsport Race Camber Plates
Dialing in your BMW suspension for more than spirited driving sounds fairly simple, however, as we discussed in our previous article, BMW Coilover Buyer's Guide, suspension geometry is an involved process. The suspension components themselves can easily be interchanged for performance variants, but without knowing how everything works together and affects your handling, you will find it is not an easy task. This comprehensive analysis will help you understand tuning your BMW suspension for street or track performance driving.
Camber Angle
How your wheels rest when viewed from head-on is known as your Camber Angle. Anyone remotely familiar with suspension is likely aware of what camber angle is, but probably less familiar with how it affects your handling. The idea itself is simple: negative camber is when the bottom of the wheel is out farther than the top of the wheel, and positive when the bottom of the wheel is further in than the top of the wheel. Camber neutral is when the wheel is completely vertical and unbiased towards either positive or negative camber. The angles themselves are incredibly important for maximizing your grip and handling under different driving conditions.
Negative Camber
Negative Camber is more popular with drift cars, track cars, and has become a style for show cars in the last decade. The severe negative camber angles you may have seen allow for increased steering angle and for the fitment of more aggressive wheels. With proper negative camber, you are actually able to increase the contact patch of the outer tires when cornering, as the vehicle weight transfer will cause the camber angle to straighten to almost camber neutral under the load shift. Ideally, you will want to set your track or street performance BMW up with negative camber that allows for a good contact patch when the vehicle is loaded but has an almost square contact patch on the outer tires under hard cornering.
Positive Camber
Positive camber is used in drag vehicles, as the massive power and torque cause the vehicle weight to shift to the driven wheels and 'squat' the rear end. With the additional weight, the wheels are cambered back out to camber neutral under load, and the car is given the maximum contact patch and grip for the best launch possible. In track cars, positive camber makes steering very light on the front wheels and reduces the rear wheels traction in the corners. You will want to adjust your car’s suspension settings if you are seeing wear on the outside of the tires, as this will mean your camber angle is too positive for your driving. Note that you can have negative camber, but if your car is cornering and you are wearing the outer part of the tire, you may need more negative camber. This can also be caused by improper toe angles, which we will discuss later.
Camber Neutral
Neutral camber is when the wheel is square to the ground and would be completely vertical. This is how you want your wheel and tire for maximum grip. Why wouldn't you just set your car up with neutral camber for the best results? The weight shift from cornering, acceleration, and braking all change the load and angle of your wheels when you are driving. While you may have neutral camber sitting still, as you drive the contact patch will be reduced no matter where you are. The best use for your BMW to take advantage of neutral camber is to set your resting camber angle to account for load shifts to give your car a neutral camber angle where the most weight and power of your vehicle will shift under driving. |
|
Adjustments
Camber angle can be adjusted with camber bolts, camber plates, and the orientation of your struts and shocks as they sit in the car. Your spring rates should be selected based on your camber angle and tires should be chosen that can handle the additional spring rates of your new setup. You can read more about the coilover suspension in our previous article BMW Coilover Buyer's Guide, and check out ourCamber Plates for the widest range of adjustment settings to perfect your suspension setup. |
|
The Turner Motorsport Camber Plates we just released are your best options for your E8X, E9X, or E46 that give you our race-tested technology and unique design for the most effective adjustable plates. Similar to our Turner Camber Plates used on our Championship-winning E90 race cars (also fits E82 1-series), these plates adjust camber and caster featuring a lot of important motorsport-developed features that other camber kits do not. The Turner Race Camber Plates are the most advanced design on the market. These are designed specifically for the E9x/E8x or the E46 chassis - no shortcuts or cookie-cutter components. We started with a fresh design to make these very user-friendly and easy to install and set up. The E90 front suspension has unique geometry and the strut is mounted at an angle that can put significant side loading on the strut shaft if it's not located properly. The location and angles for the main bearing were carefully engineered to allow the proper motion ratio and strut angles during adjustment. This greatly reduces bending forces on the strut itself which improves performance and longevity. By designing for one chassis were able to focus on what works best in that application - proper fitment and operation without unnecessary adapters, easy-to-use camber and caster adjustments, and intelligent modular design.
Another important feature of the Turner Camber Plates is the size of the upper plate. Our plates have a very large surface area to better spread strut forces through the strut tower. A smaller upper plate, like those found on competitor's kits, will localize strut forces and contribute to strut tower deformation ('strut tower mushrooming'). This is a very important feature especially as these cars get older and spend more time on the track. Deformed strut towers are a serious performance and safety concern and our camber plates are properly designed to handle the loads. The factory strut reinforcement plates are not required with our camber plates (but you can use them if you want to).
Since these designs are specific to the E9x/E8x or E46, we can build them with the bare minimum of adapters and extra hardware. This not only cuts down on confusion but makes it easier to assemble and operate. We use the correct-sized bearing for the 16mm strut shaft; no sleeves or bearing adapters required. Only a small stainless steel spacer and the upper spring hats from your coil over kit are all you need to install. We also produce the upper spring plates if you need them (see Additional Items below). We have used our camber plates with most of the major strut manufacturers on the market - AST, Koni Motorsport, Moton, Ohlins, MCS, Bilstein, and KW. | |
|
|
|
|
