BMW M3 GTI Class Car # 29

Drivers: Belinda Endress, James Sofronas

Global Motorsporst Group (GMG)

Sponsors for Endress: Unicompage.com, Santa Clarita, CA Xtreme Island Designs, Honolulu, HI.

Sponsors for Sofronas: SSF Imported Auto Parts, Intarx Suspension Technology, Irvine, CA.

I started talking to GMG a couple of months ago. I'm very thankful to have gotten the opportunity and was able to step up to the plate, thanks to my primary sponsor Xtreme Island Designs. I was ecstatic to get Unicompage.com out of Santa Clarita, CA as an added sponsor.

What a great way to celebrate a birthday! California Speedway is a local track for this new team, with a new car. Being that it was my birthday, I finally got tickets and passes for some of my dear friends to finally come out and see what I do when I always seem to be gone again racing. My Dad, Brother, and Co-Workers came out and had a great time! My friend Bill Chin was there the entire weekend. I missed Barry Cholak who comes to almost all my races, however he was visiting family for his Birthday, which is the same as mine.

3-21

Thursday was the first test day at 5pm and the sun was on the horizon, and never being in the car and the track before, it was hard to see. We had a problem with the ABS and a front-end hop, so the team had their work cut out for them.

3-22

Friday: for the first practice the car was still not right, we had a big knock and bounce on corner exit, and within 3 laps the right front control arm broke. The ABS was still not working. With the ABS not working, my concern was not flat spotting tires. I brought the car into the pits and Fabryce, the crew chief, changed out the arm with a stock one. I went out to qualify late, with the sun in my eyes and it was quickly turning dark. A few other drivers I spoke with got behind cars with lights. The right front was soft and the left was stiff. We put on a set of stickers as well, yet the braking was still biased to the front. The fiddler knob was broken so there was no adjustment. Hey, at least at the end of qualifying I had a clean set of tires. Qualified 17th. It was not the run I would have liked to have made, but we qualified.

 3-23

Saturday: We had no practice. The team scrambled to get the car fixed. Fabryce and the team fixed the front end and worked tirelessly to fix the ABS. Judy Ray from Driving Concepts even offered her M3 car as a donor. James Sofronas scrambled for parts. Scott Hartman from Intrax scrambled to organize. We practiced driver changes late, and even later the crew got sorted out and obtained the parts. Gary Hutto, the driver for car #28 was taken ill and did not make it Saturday. My prayers were with him. Hutto made it for the race. I was glad to be able to go to the Media and see some friends from the IRL that I work with doing the "500 News Bureau", and also did a spot on a local Southern. California radio show for the Speedway. It was was great to give my sponsors even more exposure.

Sunday 3-24-02

 Race Day There was a delay from the day before because of rain for IRL. Grand American Cup was to run at 8:00am. Post time changed to 8:45am. I started the race, and what fun it was. I was a bit cautious about bringing in a clean and healthy car for James, yet managed to move us up to 11th place. We had a fast driver change about 50 minutes in, which proved to be good strategy. I had a good run, but more time in a working car would have gone a long way for me as a driver. Sofronas did a great job, leading the race for several laps. Speed Channel came by and asked a lot of questions. We finished 8th in GTI, out of 15 cars and 8th Overall.

The BMW is a nice car and I hope that we can work out something to come back and do some more races with GMG in the future.