@TeamBGR1 • (January 26, 2016)- BGR made its first trip in several season to the SCCA Winter Majors held at Homestead Raceway and then one week later over to Sebring International Raceway. Sophomore driver Ben Hurst tackled his first SCCA event as the lone driver with BGR at Homestead and then was joined by Peter Dempsey in the team’s second entry at Sebring. Ben would be learning a new tire as well as track with the SCCA recently adopting a new spec tire produced by Hoosier. The team had a big task to learn quickly not only the two circuits but get a handle on the new tire.
Homestead brought some very useful data that the team would benefit from as they moved over to Sebring for the second leg of the trip.
With two solid finishes for Hurst, the bar was set higher for the second year driver as the Sebring event opened up with a positive move forward and up the timing charts. Two top ten qualifying starts for Hurst for the double header was an improvement from Homestead and came with a larger and more competitive field.
Dempsey made his debut in the BGR prepared Piper DL7/Quicksilver on the Friday and immediately was on pace setting the fastest lap in the only official practice session. He backed it up with a solid third place qualifying effort and the team set about working on the cars to tune them further to the new tires and the bumpy Sebring race course.
The Saturday race would see Dempsey lead on numerous occasions as he battled with F1600 Championship standout Skylar Robinison, holding the lead on the final turn only to come up a few feet short in a drag race to the finish line. Hurst would recover from a first lap spin to climb back to a 10th place finish and improve his overall lap time.
The Sunday feature event would see Dempsey once again in a superb battle for the win with not only his rival from Saturday but an additional combatant in Cole Morgan. The three would take turns leading and it was not until the checkered flag fell, that anyone would know who would come out on top.
Dempsey who seems to have a knack for being in close finishes outdueled his rivals to take the win by a scant .001 of a second. It marked a successful debut for the BGR team and the Piper DL7/Quicksilver combo. Hurst crossed the finish line further back than he qualified due to an early spin but made it Four for Four finishes and continued to build his experience log with some very productive outings to start the new season.
“We are very satisfied with our trip to Florida and it was nice to get the feature win and start our year off in a positive manner. Peter did an outstanding job and really did help us maximize our time on the new tire. We still have work to do but we know we have a great car to work with as we battled some of the winning teams from the US Pro Series and came away with a big win. Ben is making strides as he enters his second season ever in a car and we expect he will benefit greatly with our winter schedule. We now look forward to our second trip to Florida as we continue with our 2016 winter schedule.” comments team owner Brian Graham
The BGR team is the reigning Toyo Tires F1600 Champions and will determined to repeat that feat as well as a full effort to contest the Quebec based F1600 Formula Tour Series. Plans are also on tap to run selected F1600 Championship events south of the border include the teams next events at the Winter Exhibition Series.
BGR is the Canadian distributor for Piper Racecars and is a factory supported team of the popular chassis which is built in California, USA. The all new Piper DL7 debuted late last season and grabbed its first win at CTMP winning the Al Craighead CanAm Cup. BGR has put more drivers in the winner’s circle than any other team in OFFC history and has an incredible run winning the Rookie of the Year 9 of the last 10 years. With an alumni list that boasts drivers who have gone on to Championships all over North America to several starters in the Indy 500, BGR is well known as the place to begin a career in open wheel racing.
To learn more about the team visit www.briangrahamracing.com
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