BAR Takes Podium in Super Endurance Championship Season Opener

ZHAOQING, China - May 4, 2018 - PRLog -- Guangdong International Circuit -

Monday, April 30th was Round One of 2018's Super Endurance Championship ['SEC'] held at Guangdong International Circuit ["GIC"]. The series is a grueling test of man and machine, featuring three 6-hour races and a 12-hour finale, over four rounds.

This year, BlackArts Racing's Bill O'Brien is campaigning his Caterham R500 in the series, with the season objective of no less than an overall win, and of course P1 in the season in the 'Supercar' class. He is joined by Rich Pham [VN], Scott Wrayton [UK], Pete Olson [USA] and Dan Wells [UK], who are racing over one hour long stints in the sequential shift caterham, on the tight 13 turn Guangdong International Circuit.

Featuring live streaming of all races for 2018, Monday's season opening Round One reached a peak of 29,000 online viewers by the conclusion of the event, as tricky rain conditions in the last two hours of the opening 6 hour race Sunday led to multiple on-track incidents.

Prior to the race, in qualifying BAR's Scott Wrayton took P2 overall, being narrowly edged out of P1 by a TCR in the very last minutes of the session.
However, when Monday's 6-hour race commenced at 11:30am with its rolling start, BAR's Caterham took a commanding lead for much of the race with O'Brien in the lead and in the process setting the fastest lap of the 20 car field, until a 5min penalty put BAR down to 2^nd. Later, as heavy rains set in for the last two hours of the race, on off-track excursion cost BAR roughly 30min – despite this, incredibly, the Caterham was able to retain P2 in the Supercar class as the race came to its 6 hour conclusion. With zero mechanical issues in Caterham R500 over the six hours, Bill O'Brien and fellow race drivers Rich Pham and Scott Wrayton were able to show that the team indeed has a strong shot at clinching the 2018 Super Endurance Championship title.

With two 6 hour and one 12 hour race remaining BAR's Super Endurance Championship team will be joined by race drivers Pete Olson and Dan Wells for the remaining rounds: 6 hour races on July 1^st and September 30, and the 12 hour race on December 31^st, 2018. Check out www.facebook.com/BlackArtsRacingBAR or http://www.BlackArtsRacing.com for further updates and live streaming information for broadcasts of the remaining races.