2015 25 Hours of Thunderhill Ends Before it Begins for Bilicki and RaceWerkz BMW Team

Willows, California. (7 December, 2015) - After his most successful year yet, Bilicki thought that his 2015 racing season was wrapped up for the year. That is, until he received a phone call at 1:00 AM from RaceWerkz Engineering team owner, Casey Dennis, asking Josh to come race the longest endurance race in the country, the NASA Pro Racing 25 Hours of Thunderhill.

“I was originally going to be coaching at Daytona International Speedway in a Porsche GT3,” says Josh. “I was actually on my way to Daytona when I received a call from team owner, Casey Dennis, saying that he wanted me to come race with the RaceWerkz Engineering team at the 25 Hours of Thunderhill in their all new BMW M3. I quick found another driving coach for my client, booked my flight, and before I even knew it I was flying from sunny Daytona to Willows, California.”

After a long day of travel on Thursday, Friday would be the team's first day on track with their newly built BMW E92 M3 wide body. The day did not get off to a great start as the team encountered several issues with the car right away. Throttle mapping and ECU issues plagued the team for a majority of the day. When the team resolved these issues, it was Josh's turn to get into the car for practice. After several laps, more ECU problems brought Josh into the pits. After spending hours reviewing data and tuning the car, the team found that the ECU malfunctioned and would need to be sent back to the manufacturer, ending the race weekend for the RaceWerkz BMW team before the race even began.

“It's a shame, but there was nothing we could do about it. It's a really uncommon mechanical failure,” says Bilicki. “I was really looking forward to qualifying our car and starting the race, but it just wasn't in the books for us this year. I really want to thank Casey Dennis and Ethan Kuhl for giving me the opportunity to be a part of their race team. I also want to thank the entire team for putting everything they had into the car. Many of the crew members stayed up all night trying to resolve the issue, so I really appreciate that. This year has been fantastic and I've been given so many incredible opportunities, but now it's time for me to put my head down and focus on finding a ride for the 2016 racing season.” 

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