Race Report: Million, Palomar Racing Win NASA WERC Rd.6 and E2 Championship at Buttonwillow
Buttonwillow, CA | October 8-9th, 2022
After a tremendously busy month for team Palomar Racing, it was back to the track at Buttonwillow Raceway for NASA SoCal in early October.
Matt Million and Nik Romano would be the drivers in the #24 BMW E36 M3 configured for the ST5/E2 classification of NASA sprint/endurance racing. The team’s #25 BMW E36 would sit out this weekend as all focus was on ensuring a NASA Western Endurance Racing Championship (WERC) class title and continuation of their points lead in NASA SoCal ST5 Championship with the #24.
The priority for this weekend was the NASA WERC title in E2. It was Round 6 of 6 for the 2022 season, a 4.5-hour finale stretching from 3:30 to 8:00 PM in the evening.
Million qualified on pole position in E2 with a time of 1:59:2 around Buttonwillow’s CW25 configuration. Qualifying 1st was a secondary focus to trialing a new compound of endurance tires in the session. The team was pleased with their performance and elected to run them in the race for further evaluation.
Million started the race and was scheduled to run for the first two fuel stints, or about two and a half hours. Around sunset, Romano would take over and run for the remaining two hours until the finish.
Getting underway at 3:30 PM, Million leaped to a steady lead in E2. He trailed behind the E1 leaders and found a comfortable rhythm to slowly build a gap and save fuel. It was a relatively sparse race; only about 20 entries filled the circuit with four in E2.
Million got up to a 40-second lead over the #46 Lucas Racing and #28 HQ Autosport entries before the first stop. During the next stint, a red flag would be displayed for a refueling fire on pit lane. This halted the race for about 15 minutes, followed by a multiple lap full course yellow procedure. Back to green, Million continued the stint until his next refueling and driver swap to Romano.
Romano closed the final two hours into dark with relative ease. While the battle for class position widened to about one lap, the team realized they entered a battle for the overall podium! Remarkably after qualifying 9th overall from about 20, the #24 was running 3rd after a number of car and pit issues for higher classified entries.
Unfortunately for Palomar Racing, a late full course yellow bunched the field together including the ES-class BMW M2 CS that ran 4th overall. They’d fallen back with issues but now had the track position and obvious pace advantage to retake 3rd.
At 8:00 PM, the #24 BMW E36 took the checkered to win E2 by a margin of four laps. The team’s 4th place overall is an impressive milestone for an E2 entry. With 119 laps complete, Palomar Racing finished only one lap behind the E1 leader who ended up 2nd overall. Consistency and avoiding mistakes is key to nights like this!
On the NASA SoCal ST5 Championship side, it was a relatively undramatic pair of races for the team. With Million racing on Saturday and Romano racing on Sunday, they both took 1st place in ST5 setting a new CW25 record in the process. They pulled away from the ST5 competitors to the tune of multiple seconds and ran trouble-free. This extends Palomar Racing’s points lead in this sprint championship.
Million’s next race will be at Sebring International Raceway for World Racing League (WRL) competition from October 28th to 30th. He will excitedly rejoin team Chattanooga Tourenwagen in their GP2 class BMW 330i E46. It will mark Million’s first visit to the famed airfield circuit as he gains valuable seat time there and helps the team chase a GP2 title. Afterwards, Million will race at Chuckwalla Raceway in mid-November for Palomar Racing. There, they hope to secure an ST5 championship. In early December, the Palomar Racing team and Million will take on the NASA 25 Hours of Thunderhill.
Look for Matt Million’s ‘October Update’ to be published by the end of this month. Visit ‘Photos’ to view more pictures from the event.