Dillon Machavern, Robby Foley and Bill Auberlen put together flawless drives to place their No. 96 LMC Industrial Contractors BMW M6 GT3 on the podium in Sunday’s six hour endurance test at Watkins Glen International.
The all-american driver trio started from the second row to run inside the top five of the sixteen for the majority of the race on the 3.4-mile 11-turn course which marked the fifth round of the 2019 WeatherTech SportsCar Championship.
Machavern took the green flag to execute an intense double stint before entering pit lane for a full service stop to hand the car over to Foley. Foley continued on to set a quick pace to hold position inside the top five.
“Luckily, we had a really solid car here again this year,” Dillon Machavern said. “The Turner guys did a fantastic job setting the car up for a long run on the Michelin Tires which really allowed me to keep a solid pace in my opening stints. Overall we are all very happy with this result.”
Foley went on to complete a stellar stint, running in the top four, ultimately making a pass to move up and into the lead of the GTD class.
“Feels so great to turn our luck around and come home with a podium finish after this run of bad luck we’ve had,” said Robby Foley. “As a team we’ve had great speed all year and to finally capitalize on that is a great feeling. Huge thanks to everyone on the team for a flawless effort all weekend, let’s carry this momentum onto CTMP next week!”
Following a full service stop, Auberlen took the controls of the blue and yellow BMW only to be forced back into pit lane with a punctured tire after just one lap as a result of contact by a prototype.
Both Foley and Auberlen went on to battle through traffic to attempt to close the one minute gap from the leaders. Ultimately Auberlen pushed through traffic, slowly closing the 20 second gap to second place with the help of one late race full course caution.
Despite the resilient efforts by all three drivers to take the top step of the podium, the No. 96 BMW crossed the line just 0.6 seconds behind the winning GTD entry for second place which marks the strongest result for the team this season.
The Turner driver trio was the only all-american lineup on the podium this afternoon at Watkins Glen, just several days befor ethe Fourth of July.
“Our BMW M6 GT3 was strong here so I think the results are well deserved,” said Bill Auberlen. “All three of us concentrated on putting together strong stints but unfortunately contact from a Daytona Prototype put us down almost a full lap from the GTD leaders. In the end we just did not have enough time to make up the gap between us and the front runners late in the race.”
With round five in the books, the team now turns focus to round six at the Canadian Tire Motorsport Park on Sunday, July 7th for the Mobil 1 Grand Prix. In 2016, Jens Klingmann and Bret Curtis captured the first North American win for the M6 GT3 at CTMP.
