Jan 2022 Buttonwillow—ST5 season opener

Time to get this Challenge started

“Palomar Racing will campaign a BMW E36 to compete and win in NASA’s very competitive WERC E2 and Super Touring ST5 classes. The Challenge has been accepted. Palomar Racing will build the car and Nik Romano will guide us through the NASA rules and anchor our drivers to be named later to create a team that can not only win but dominate.”

Well if the trophies were based on best presentation we are clearly on our way to domination. And yes we brought our out Team owners Vintage BMW 2002 racer and even threatened to run it, sadly we suffered a head gasket failure on Friday but our new driver Matt Million got a chance to see where we come from. In his first outing in the 2002 he came off track grinning from ear to ear and couldn’t believe the visceral experience that driving a vintage race car entails. He understands us much better and the team is definitely taking shape.

Not everything went as planned, No we didn’t dominate the weekend, but we did let the paddock know we were here to race, and we would be in the fight. We finished the weekend with a 2nd place finish on Saturday and a 3rd place on Sunday. The car is now handling, still no power, but our build is starting to make sense. We never set out to build the most powerful car, but rather a car with equal power to weight to the best in class, but with handling that would be second to none. Well time to push the schedule again, we need the new motor and it can’t wait for the #24 to be built,
we are just too far underpowered. By formula we are allowed 200 and we have a mere 170.

Thanks to our Partners for their support

Actively seeking partners in addition to our primary Palomar Solar & Roofing.