BMW of North America announced its contingency program for teams racing BMW and BMW-powered cars in the 2009 Koni Challenge Series and Rolex Sports Car Series of the Grand American Road Racing Association.BMW teams in the Koni Challenge Series Grand Touring (GS) and Sports Tuner (ST) classes will be awarded $4000 for 1st, $3000 2nd, $2000 3rd, $1000 4th and $500 5th. A BMW winner of the Driver's Championship will be awarded $2000.
A total of nine GS class BMW M3s were entered by Automatic Racing, Fall-Line Motorsports, Kinetic Motorsports and Turner Motorsport in the January 23 Koni Challenge Fresh From Florida 200. Fall-Line and Kinetic will debut the first 2009 E92 M3 V8s to Koni Challenge competition. Four BMW 3-Series and one BMW Z4 are entered in the ST class.
As recently as 2007, BMW teams won five of six Koni Challenge titles with a sweep of the GS Manufacturer, Drivers and Team Championships, as well as the ST Drivers and Team Championships.
In both the Daytona Prototype and GT classes of the Rolex Series, the award to BMW teams will be $5000 for 1st, $4000 for 2nd, $3000 for third, $2000 for 4th and $1000 for 5th. A BMW-powered driver winning the Driver's Championship will be awarded $3000.
Three teams entered BMW-powered Riley Daytona Prototypes in the 47th annual Rolex 24 at Daytona. They set the third and fourth fastest times of the 21-car field at the January 3-5 official test. The No 55 Edata Solutions/Supercar Life Racing LevelFive Motorsports BMW Riley of Christophe Bouchut, Scott Tucker and Ed Zabinski set the third fastest overall time. The No 22 Alegra Motorsports Gatorade/Today MD BMW Riley of Thomas Enge, Carlos de Quesada, Jean-Francois Dumoulin and Ryan Dalziel finished the test with the fourth fastest time.
In addition to BMW of North America's contingency program, eligible BMW drivers may share part of the international BMW Sports Trophy 2009. Awarded to support the efforts of private BMW racers throughout the world, the BMW Sports Trophy was first presented in the 1960s.