The first B-Spec (Sportsman Showcase) Grand Am race is this weekend at Homestead-Miami Speedway. The B-Spec race will be on Sunday, prior to the Rolex race.

Currently, there are 8 cars registered:

4 - MINIs
2 - Mazda2s
2 - Ford Fiestas

Anyway, I drove to Miami today (Fri) and was helping out Bruce Hollander with his MINI B-Spec racer.

-I'll be taking some pictures of the newly wrapped race car (it will be unique, that's for sure!)... kind of a graffiti/tattoo looking wrap. You'll have to see it.

-Setting up video for the car, so that I can post IN-CAR video of the practices and race once I get back.

-I'll be getting a video comparison of my stock Cooper exhaust vs. the B-Spec Cooper exhaust, which will be made available for sale soon.


So, I'll post some info/pics to here when I get a chance, but over the next few days, I'll be posting OFTEN to the http://www.facebook.com/Turn17 and the http://www.facebook.com/pages/Fast-Toys-Inc/299754130094766.. in case anyone wants to follow along.

Of course, I'll post updates for the other B-Spec MINIs and the RSR cars and Continental Tire series, as well, but I'll TRY to preface any "spoilers" with 'SPOILER!!!!!" in case anyone is hoping to watch the Conti race later. I don't know if the B-Spec race will be televised at any point, so I won't worry about spoilers there.

Should be an awesome weekend, now with SEVEN race MINIs out there!

If anyone has any specific questions or pictures you want to see, just let me know!


UPDATE:

Here's a pic of the race car (with a cameo by my car :D):

http://www.flickr.com/photos/41540337@N07/7120372309/http://www.flickr.com/photos/41540337@N07/7120372309/ by http://www.flickr.com/people/41540337@N07/, on Flickr

 

Awesome! Good luck to all of the MINIS. Have a safe race.

 

Thanks! Hopefully the rain lets up!

 

Thanks, Blainestang. I've been looking forward to the B-Spec races.

 

Glad I'm not the only one! :D

Here are the results of the first practice:

http://www.grand-am.com/News/GA_News...id=6385&sid=83

The MINI pictured above had the second fastest lap of the practice!

 

Practice times are over 30 seconds slower than the practice-leading GS cars. Four longish straights are too many for the power-challenged B-Specs. As relatively new race cars, they probably still have a lot of sorting out to do, so lap times might be dropping more than usual. I'm just glad that such cars have a chance to race in such venues.

 

Yeah, the B-Spec cars are on a totally different planet from the GS cars... Even the ST cars. You're right, we'll see some improvement in lap times by the race tomorrow. More than one of the MINI drivers had never driven this track until that practice. Our friend Bruce knows his car can be faster than it was today, too, because he was here two weeks ago.

 

Blainestang, appreciate the coverage. Is there any media coverage of the B-Spec races this weekend that I can DVR on U-Verse?

This looks like a blast! Too bad I have an auto MC that I use as a daily driver...

 

B-Spec (SS) race results:

http://www.grand-am.com/Portals/0/Im...lts/SSRace.pdf

 

You're welcome... I know there isn't a lot of good coverage of the race anywhere, really, and that's a shame because the race was awesome!


It's definitely shaping up to be a cool series. There were a lot of lead changes, off-track excursions (hopefully fewer in the future!), etc.

What it needs is SOME kind of video coverage. Maybe it's not big enough for live coverage by SPEED or something, but stream it live on the Grand Am website or something, at least!