Castrol BMW Race Driver Series - 6-7 February 2016.

Press release: Castrol BMW Race Driver Series - 6-7 February 2016.
For immediate release: Friday 5 February 2016.

California’s Dane Cameron, fresh from a top-six finish at last weekend’s 54th annual Rolex 24 at Daytona, will contest this weekend’s Castrol BMW Race Driver Series event at Taupo.

A non-championship weekend in support of the TRS international event the BMW series will feature the Open Class and 2L category cars for three races as a combined grid.

Driving one of Matakana’s Mortimer Motorsport cars the team head to Taupo with two BMW M3GTRs and the freshly run GT4 specification car. The father-son team added the newly imported car to their line-up and invited Cameron to pilot the now extra M3.

In direct competition is current pace-setter Andrew Nugent in the similar specification M3 E92 V8.

Engineered and run by multiple New Zealand rally champion Neil Allport his experience with the marque stretches back to the mid-90’s when he built the cars campaigned by Brett Riley and Craig Baird.

“Whether it is a rally car, touring car or speedway - they all have wheels and the same engineering fundamentals. To me, it is the experience you have that you put to use at making it more than a car that is the difference. That’s come from my time driving - and knowing what is needed in a car,” said Allport.

“My background, in rallying, not having a lot of money; I had to build and do things myself. I had to put the time and effort into getting it done, from suspension, engine, gearbox - everything on the car - you learn a lot of skills through that.”

Skills Allport says is what the foundation of his business is built on.

“When Andrew (Nugent) came to speak with me he had a clean sheet of paper - only that it was to be his last car build and wanted it done properly. He needed it all done from one place with one team looking after the car - that knew the car - and that’s proven again to be the reason behind its success. It really is the secret behind this car. You can have all the best bits lying on the floor but if you can’t put them all together properly it's not going to work - and that’s just attention to detail.”

Heading to a weekend of racing is Allport’s way of seeing success at what his team has achieved: “It is the satisfaction of seeing what we’ve created from the customer's original brief to getting the results and performance - the return on investment on their terms.

“It’s no different to what we did on the World Rally Championship scene. We did them all well, and prided ourselves on making sure we did the job properly. At the end of the day we like to think we save people from themselves with regards to the money they can sometimes waste through not taking good advice or doing things correctly. It always seems it costs more up front but at the end of the day it always ends up cheaper.”

Racing takes place on the Saturday and Sunday with three eight lap races. Sunday’s race includes a handicap start.

Supporters of the series and scholarship car include BMW New Zealand, Castrol, Toyo tyres, Koni shocks/King Springs, Stocks, P and S Autocentre, Tracktime and Classic Car Cover.

ENDS.

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