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CHE Racing BMW M2 ready to tackle the Mount Panorama
CHE Racing is confident that its BMW M2 race car will be up for the challenge of Australia’s most prestigious production car race, the Hi-Tec Oils Bathurst 6 Hour this Sunday.
The brand-new German rocket has undergone a fast yet thorough preparation ahead of the popular endurance race where 70 entries will take to the start at 11:15am Sunday.
The huge field of cars is likely to eclipse the largest-ever field to take on the famous Mount Panorama circuit for an endurance race.
Cameron Hill, the reigning Porsche Carrera Cup champion and his Canberra-based team have been burning the midnight oil to get the BMW M2 ready to take on the race. Hill will be partnered by young ace Tom Sargent, the reigning Australian Formula Ford champion.
While BMWs have dominated the 6 Hour in recent years, this weekend’s event marks the maiden appearance for the highly anticipated M2 variant will compete, taking on the M3 and M4 stalwarts, as well as a horde of Ford Mustangs, Mercedes Benz, HSVs and many more.
With limited time to prepare the entry prior to the event, Hill and his team completed two short shakedown tests of the M2, which according to the team ran faultlessly.
CHE Racing’s BMW will carry the support of Tegra Australia, Greenfield’s Town Planning, Momenta Accounting and Insurance, Slonebuilt Trailers and Canberra BMW.
Practice will be held on Friday ahead of qualifying on Saturday and the 6 Hour race on Easter Sunday afternoon.
Cameron Hill
BMW M2 driver, CHE Racing
“This car is pretty awesome. I jumped in for about 10 initial laps and I was pretty impressed straight away. We haven’t had a lot of time to develop it, but in the two days of testing, nothing went wrong,” said Hill.
“It has a lot of potential, so we are keen to turn our first laps at Mount Panorama and see what it’s got.
“We are running a pretty off the shelf tune. The set-up is good, we got the car feeling a lot more drivable compared to when we first rolled it out.”
“I feel like if we do everything right as a team, we have a good chance for outright victory. It will be cool to find out how we are going to go against the other BMWs. We’ll just have to wait and see.
“My dad has been pulling big hours. My boys in the shop have been non-stop doing everything they can. We had an auto electrician in doing our wiring.
“There’s been a big team of people who have really been pushing. A month or two ago, we committed and committed hard. To be able to turn a few laps in testing is better than what we had expected. Only a month ago, we were looking at it in the workshop and we were thinking “Is this actually going to happen?”
Tom Sargent
BMW M2 driver, CHE Racing
“We’re really excited,” said Sargent. “We haven’t tested the BMW as much as we like due to time restrictions, so we’re just really hoping the car gets a run this weekend and gets some valuable laps. This will enable us to progress and understand a little bit more about it for next year.
“The colours of the livery will ensure the BMW will pop in the sun.
“It’ll be interesting to pair up with Cam. We have worked together during the past four-five years now with him developing my driver training, so it will be good to drive the same car together and bounce off each other.
“I’m really looking forward to that and hopefully we can have a strong weekend.”
Practice for the Hi-Tec Oils Bathurst 6 Hour commences tomorrow morning at Mount Panorama with a pair of 60-minute sessions to kick off proceedings.
Friday’s program will also include the Turtle Wax Trans Am Series and Supercheap Auto TCR Australia on track.