(FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE)
The Art of Winning in the Rain
Amesbury, MA. – October 12th, 2020--
The #96 Turner motorsport / Liqui Moly BMW M6 won its second race of the 2020 season on Saturday night, October 11th, at the Charlotte ROVAL. In conditions that mirrored scenes from Art of Racing in the Rain, Bill Auberlen was the first to take the checkered flag for the GTD class after he and Robby Foley faced treacherous rain conditions throughout the entire 100-minute GT only race.
Starting the race on the front row after qualifying the car 2nd, Robby Foley would hydroplane shortly after the start, spinning and dropping him to the back of the pack.
Foley would put his head down and work his way back up a few spots before pitting at the 33-minute mark to hand the car over to Auberlen.
Bill and Robby were relentless with driver change practice all weekend. Chief Strategist, Don “The Iceman” Salama encouraged it as he knew that portion of the pitstop could be the dealbreaker in an effort to leapfrog the competition.
True to strategy, Foley and Auberlen did an almost perfect driver change advancing them from 8th position to 3rd. Auberlen worked his way into 2nd place shortly after the restart and with an hour to go overtook the leader of the class.
With lap times rivaling the GTLM field, Auberlen opened his lead to almost 20 seconds. However, with what looked like relative clear sailing, a full-course yellow with 7 minutes remaining packed up the field again.
The green flag waved and Auberlen put on a masterclass holding off an attacking Pat Long to cross the finish line just 2 seconds in the lead.
“I didn’t see this one coming,” Said team boss Will Turner “Of course our ultimate goal is to win every race, but obviously that’s not realistic. When we tested here a few weeks ago we learned we didn’t have the pace in the dry like the Lexus or Acura had.. so coming into this race, our goal was simple – to survive the unforgiving track, grab some championship points, and make sure our BMW M6 can make next weekend’s race at Road Atlanta.”
The Turner GTD car currently sits 5th in the season long championship only 18 points from first and 12 points from 3rd with 3 races left in the season.
The team will dry out and head to Road Atlanta for another busy weekend where Turner Motorsport will field two GS entries, the #95 and #96 BMW M4 GT4, in the IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge Series and look to park the #96 BMW M6 GTD entry in victory lane once again at the Petit Le Mans.uration was different, Like Robby says, it's a tough place to pass so track position is going to be super important - I am hoping team strategist Don Salama has some tricks up his sleeve to get us up front."
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About Turner Motorsport
Turner Motorsport is the leading BMW tuner in North America, bringing technology and expertise from the racetrack to the street for over two decades. Since 1993 the Turner Motorsport Team has competed in over 380 professional races, winning seven professional racing championships in four different series since 2003. The most recent being the 2014 Team Championship in the GTD-class of the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship. Their success is passed into every component that Turner Motorsport designs and sells through their comprehensive website and performance showroom. Our Race Team, R&D Engineers and Sales Team work together, ensuring practical knowledge and state-of-the-art engineering flow in both directions. Few companies in North America can claim such a close relationship to what they sell and what they race.
