Doug Makishima wins USTCC season opener in Super Touring (ST)
Makishima increases his winning streak to 7 and sets more track records for AR-G Motorsports
Napa, CA– 2020 – AR-G Motorsports announces that defending ST Season Champion Doug Makishima, an AR-G team principal and team driver, won the 1st USTCC race of the 2020 season, continuing his momentum from last season, extending his winning streak to 7 wins in a row in the Super Touring (ST) class. His first time racing this track, Makishima set track records in both qualifying and race using Buttonwillow's track configurations CW13 and CW25 respectively. Official dyno compliance testing during the event confirmed that his #23 Summit Tech BMW M3 was actually running lower power than expected.
"The team had the car well sorted and prepped during the off season, and we put one test weekend on it before this 1st event, said Makishima. "During the Friday open test event before the race weekend, I was eager to get some laps in on a track that was new to me, and I was able to find the only wall on the track - luckily the damage was only cosmetic!," he continued. "Brushing off the minor incident, I quickly found pace, and set faster times each session, securing pole for ST class and started outside front row ahead of some faster GT cars, and led the ST class flag-to-flag."
When the green flag dropped, Doug had a flawless start, and found himself going into turn 1 leading the field. The fastest GT car quickly overtook him several turns later, then after the first lap, Makishima let the P2 and P3 GT cars by, showing courtesy and sportsmanship - even though the P3 GT car was running similar lap times as Doug, he didn't want to interfere with the GT podium battle. His track-record setting lap, a full 2 seconds faster than his nearest ST competitor, came in a cluster of 3 no-traffic open laps that were all within 1/10th of a second, demonstrating performance consistency of both the car and his driving.
About ARG:
Apex Racing Global (AR-G) Motorsports is a leading Northern California professional auto racing team based in Napa, Ca. In AR-G's first full United States Touring Car Championship (USTCC) race season, the team won two championships and two 2nd runner-ups in the season championship across all four classes (ST, SP, TC and GT). The team principals and drivers come from top race teams, and together have amassed decades of racing experience, both domestically and internationally. Founded in 2018, the team is currently campaigning BMW M3s and other high performance touring cars in the USTCC series, where it is consistently on the podium. @argmotorsports
About USTCC
USTCC is a professional road racing series comprising of late model sport compact sedans such as BMW 3 series, Mazdaspeed 3, Hyundai Genesis Coupe, Chevrolet Corvette, Porsche 911, Audi R8, Ford Mustang, Honda Civic and others. The cars use slightly modified engines and highly modified suspensions with aerodynamic ground effects and sticky Hankook slick race tires. The races can be seen exclusively on Final Drive TV available on NBC Sports on Xfinity cable, Dish Network, DirecTV and AT&T U-verse. For more information on USTCC, visit www.ustcc.com