Million, Palomar Racing Win NASA WERC Season Opener in E2 at Willow Springs with Double ST5 Wins
ROSAMOND, CA | 12 February 2022
Palomar Racing take 1st place in the E2 category during the season-opening 2022 NASA Western Endurance Racing Championship round at Willow Springs International Raceway. The 3.5 hour event ran from sunset to night on Saturday, February 12th. The team finished 1st of 6 in E2 and 6th of 25 overall. The team also won both NASA SoCal ST5 sprint races at the weekend.
Team drivers Matt Million and Nik Romano delivered the first endurance win for the group’s #25 BMW E36 ST5/E2 on debut. Romano started the race from pole position in the E2 class at 4:30 PM local time. Million took over at dusk during the first scheduled fuel stop just before halfway and took the finish.
While the challenge of making Palomar Racing’s NASA WERC debut was difficult enough, they faced a fierce battle from the veteran #72 MooreWood Creative BMW E46 squad during the race and ultimately finished on the same lap (118). An alternative tire change strategy put Palomar Racing a lap behind MooreWood Creative during part of the second half until a late unscheduled stop swung the race in favor of the #25 Palomar Racing entry.
“This is incredible. We showed up this weekend with almost a brand new car from the one we’ve been testing. Lots of new components had to get fitted in an extremely tight window to this race. If we ended the weekend within touching distance of the excellent MooreWood Creative team, it would’ve been mission accomplished for February. What actually happened was extraordinary. The combination of strong pace and fuel management between Nik (Romano) and I, a quicker and more reliable car than expected, well practiced pit stop procedures, crew excitement, and overall crew excitement for this debut put us in a position to capitalize on any faults from the competition. The stress of building this car/program from scratch in January has become raw potential. A serious and genuine thank you to Andy Anderson, Mike Anderson, Kevin Desirello, Blair Geil and the rest of Palomar Racing who saw the value of bringing me into their program. You should all be immensely proud and I’m eager to help push this program to new heights in NASA WERC, NASA ST5, NASA Championships, and the 25 Hours of Thunderhill.
- Matt Million
Look for Matt Million’s ‘February Update’ to be published before the end of this month.