Professional driver and driving instructor Byron Payne joins longtime friend and fellow pro driver and instructor Johnny Kanavas in the #63 Mitchum Motorsports BMW for the Continental Tire Sports Car Festival Powered by Mazda at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, Sept. 7-8. Coming off of a 21st place finish at Indy in the Capaldi Racing Ford Mustang Boss 302R, Payne will switch from the GS to the ST class for Round-9 of the CTSCC.
Team Principal Chris Mitchum welcomes Payne to the team… “With the BMW’s being a new program for 2012 and having Kanavas behind the wheel of the #63 all year, we have made a lot of progress with development of the BMW this season.” Commented Mitchum. “After facing a little adversity early in the year, we have now proven we have a competitive effort and are excited to pair Johnny and Byron for this event.
“It’s going to be a good weekend in Monterey. It will be good to finally drive as teammates with Johnny and see what we can do. MRLS is a track that we both know and Johnny and the Mitchum team have really developed the 1-series BMW this season and I look forward to driving with the team.” Reported Payne.
Payne welcomes partners Sikku, N.Hansen, and R.Desmond to their second GRAND-AM race of the season, along with paying homage to the late Garvin Brown Racing [GB3]. These partners join Destiny Deep Sea Water, Oakley, and Drift Innovation as part of this ST-Class effort.
The green flag for the GRAND-AM Continental Tire Sports Car Festival Powered by Mazda flies on Saturday, September 8 @ 2:30pm (PT), with qualifying taking place at 10:55am (PT) on Saturday at the picturesque Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca in Monterey, CA. Live timing & scoring can be viewed at: www.GRAND-AM.com