PTG BMW Sebring Testing Day One

Sebring, FL (March 16. 1998) - The PTG BMW M3 Professional Sports Car Racing GT3 team concluded its first full day of testing today at the historic Sebring International Raceway. Drivers Bill Auberlen, Boris Said, Ross Bentley, Peter Cunningham and Mark Simo all shared time in the #10 and #6 Yokohama/Final BMW M3 four door sedans that are defending their class title in Saturday's 46th running of the Superflo 12 Hours of Sebring.

Here's what some of them had to say:

BILL AUBERLEN - "I'm really happy where we're at already. It's truly amazing that we can come out here, run the cars hard from 9 until 5, and basically all we have to do is put gas in the car. These are the most reliable cars I've driven. At one time, we were working on getting an entire fuel load's worth of wear out of the Yokohama tires. We tweaked and we tweaked, and we're now where we get two fuel loads' worth of wear out of the tires. So now we're looking at making sure we can get everyone up to speed with another full day of testing on Tuesday, because when we get to the official practices and qualifying sessions, our track time becomes limited and that's when the real fine-tuning takes place."

BORIS SAID - "It's going to be a long week waiting for the race! No, seriously, we are running exceptionally well, knock on wood. The big thing here is reliability. This race is harder than the Daytona 24-hour by far because we do a lot more shifting, a lot more braking. So right now, since we know we're going to be changing everything on the cars by race time, we're running as hard as we can to see how much abuse they'll take. But so far, they're holding up very well. Personally, I've got a bit of learning to do because this is my first time on this track after the changes they've made."

ROSS BENTLEY - "At this stage, I'm working on getting comfortable with this car since I haven't spend a lot of time in production cars lately. It takes a different style driving the M3. In a World Sports Car, you've got to be more tidy. With the M3, you get a lot more movement. So we've got four more days of abusing these cars before race day."

World Wide Web Note:

Check out the official Superflo 12 Hours of Sebring site on the World Wide Web via www.theautochannel.com for audio clips of interviews with PTG BMW M3 drivers Bill Auberlen and Boris Said. You'll also find up-to-the-minute news and information throughout the week, as well as a live broadcast of Saturday's race, which begins at 10:00 a.m. EST.