Anders Hainer celebrates the Grand-Am Cup Grand Sport driver championship.

For: Immediate Release     Date: October 11, 2006    Contact: Dan Barnes

October 11, 2006—Torrance, California USA – Turner Motorsport collected driver and team championships in both Grand Sport and Street Tuner classes in Grand-Am Cup title chases that came down to the final weekend, in a pair of six-hour endurance races at Virginia International Raceway on October 7 and 8. This is the first time in Grand-Am Cup history that a team has won both class championships.

Grand Sport Class

On Saturday, Anders Hainer achieved the driver championship and his StopTech brake-equipped No. 97 H&R Springs/Under Armor BMW M3, co-driven by Boris Said, earned the team championship. It was far from an easy run, as the Turner Motorsport team overcame several challenges. Early electrical problems on the No. 97 car were diagnosed and fixed in the pits. Said was running in a solid second place in the latter third of the race when contact with another car cost nine positions and the rear bumper cover. As darkness fell, intermittent heavy rain made the final hour a challenge for even the most experienced road race pilots. Said finished sixth, maintaining the points lead Anders Hainer had built coming into the event. Said himself did not share in the driver’s championship, as he had bowed out of two races earlier in the season due to other driving commitments and was replaced in the car by Joey Hand (Trois-Rivieres) and Nic Jönsson (Mid-Ohio).

Due to the length of Saturday’s enduro, Joey Hand joined the Turner Motorsport effort again, qualifying the No. 96 H&R Springs/StopTech Brakes BMW M3 third on the grid and handing it over to Gleason in second place at the two hour, 30 minute mark. Caught up in the same incident late in the race as the No. 97 car, Bill Auberlen drove into the night with minor chassis damage on the No. 96 BMW. Auberlen recovered the positions lost and finished third, also securing third place in the driver and team championships for himself and co-driver Chris Gleason. Though No. 96 was the only car to win more than one race in Grand Sport, Auberlen and Gleason were the victims of bad luck several times throughout 2006, which ultimately hurt their championship standing.

Street Touring Class

On Sunday, Will Turner and Don Salama finished second in the Street Tuner class six-hour race, securing both driver and team championships in the No. 95 H&R Springs/Borla Exhaust BMW 330i.

A Legacy of Racing Success

In 2006, Turner Motorsport ran the most successful M3 racecars in North American professional road racing. The No. 96 and No. 97 M3s won three races and scored eight podium finishes within a total of 16 top ten results. No other team racing the M3 professionally in North America scored a victory in 2006.

Will Turner, team owner:
"This is an extraordinary moment in our company's history. The guys and girls on this team deserve this championship after all the hard work they put in - especially in the weeks leading up to this race. This was a tough race to prepare for and our crew pulled it off. Winning races this year and bringing home the title I think really solidifies Turner Motorsport as a championship-caliber team. It's a very important distinction to have when our business is selling and developing the best high-performance BMW parts. Only one BMW tuner in North America can say they won a championship this year."

Championship-winning Turner Motorsport SPEED World Challenge Touring Car in 2004.

Turner Motorsport has partnered with StopTech since 2004, when it won the SPEED World Challenge Touring Car championship. In 2005, the No. 96 StopTech Brakes/H&R Springs/Turner Motorsport BMW M3 driven by Bill Auberlen won five of eleven Grand-Am Cup Grand Sport races and led the championship, but ended the season as runner-up due to a DNS in the final event caused by damage from on-track debris. (A sixth race was won by a StopTech-equipped Unitech Racing Nissan 350Z in 2005, for StopTech victories in more than half the races.)

Winning Technology

Grand-Am Cup Grand Sport class is the perfect demonstration of StopTech’s Balanced Brake Upgrade® technology. The cars are closely related to their production counterparts, and must run original equipment rear calipers and rotor size as well as the stock brake master cylinder. StopTech is able to achieve the best performance by sizing the caliper pistons in its front-axle brake upgrades to work ideally with the rest of the brake system, including ABS, with no additional proportioning valve or master cylinder changes required. With a correctly balanced brake system, all four tires approach the limit of their ability to slow the car simultaneously, delivering the shortest braking distances. Midway through 2006, one competitor said in a post-race interview, “The guys gave me a great car today, we just didn’t have much for the BMW. Those guys were prepared with a lot of brake.”

The exact same principle is applied to all of StopTech’s Balanced Brake Upgrade big brake kits for street, track day and club race cars, where the original brake balance is preserved or improved upon through live vehicle testing.

The latest information on all Grand-Am Cup events can be found at the series’ web site, http://www.grandamerican.com.

StopTech Brakes for Your Car

Unlike many racing components, the exact same two-piece AeroRotor discs, calipers and stainless steel brake lines used by these successful racers are included in the Balanced Brake Upgrades StopTech engineers for street and track day cars. Located in Torrance, California, Stoptech is the performance engineering and manufacturing division of Centric Parts. StopTech is the leader in Balanced Brake Upgrades for production cars and production-based racecars. It has three patents in basic brake technology and one other pending. With a worldwide network of resellers, StopTech’s product line includes Balanced Brake Upgrades for approximately 450 applications, two-piece Direct Replacement Kit AeroRotors, braided stainless-steel brake lines and slotted original-dimension rotors. StopTech stocks a wide range of performance brake pads. The company’s website, www.stoptech.com, is a clearinghouse of performance brake information, as well as providing details on StopTech products.

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For more information contact Dan Barnes at (310) 325-4799 or by email at dbarnes@stoptech.com.