Continuing the theme of the Nürburgring 24 hour race, here is some footage of the MINI CHALLENGE support category from the 2007 event. Split into four parts the in-car setup has been taken from the car of Carlo Bermes, racing for the HBPO racing team. This first clip takes you from the start on the [...]

Following on from yesterday’s post about the 2008 Australian MINI Challenge debut I thought it might be a good time to raid the vault for this classic, if alarming, footage from a MINI Challenge support race at the 2006 Nürburgring 24 Hour event. Thomas Winkelhock rolled his R53 MINI Challenge racecar 8 times after getting [...]

This weekend saw the world racing debut of the new R56 MINI Challenge cars. The 2008 Australian series kicked off at Sydney’s Eastern Creek and Neil McFadyen from the M3 Motorsports team has taken the round win. McFadyen claimed the chequered flag in Race 1 and Race 3, with Race 2 being won by Grant [...]

The Australian debut of the 2008 MINI Challenge series is just days away, with the Eastern Creek round being held this weekend. This morning’s emails revealed the following press release from BMW which on the surface sounds quite good, but perhaps paints the MINI Challenge as some sort of quaint novelty. Time will tell I [...]

Thank you to AUSringers reader Paul who sent me this image of the MINI Challenge cars captured in a Sydney storage facility. The opening race of the 2008 series is under three weeks away, with the first round being held at Eastern Creek on 7-9 March.

Signs of the 2008 Australian MINI Challenge becoming one step closer have advanced with the news that Neil McFadyen will lead the charge for the M3 Motorsports team. The 24 year old McFadyen has an impressive CV that includes three successive Australian CIK Karting Championships in three different categories—where he was pitted against names such [...]

This is one of those rare articles on AUSringers that has a solely Australian focus. In some great news for MINI fans, the 2008 Australian MINI Challenge has secured a superb free to air TV package with Channel 7. There will be a total of seven hours of programming, with the majority being broadcast LIVE [...]

MINI is close to fulfilling the required power demands in its market segment with the ‘Stage II’ John Cooper Works (JCW) MINI Cooper S which is due for release later this year. Power is expected to be close to 220bhp which is a healthy increase from the 192bhp gained from the ‘Stage I’ bolt on [...]

As the owner of an R53 MINI Cooper S this clip is music to my ears. If there’s one thing I would love to do it would be to drive my own car around the Nordschleife. Watching this footage is probably as close as I will get. The unmistakable induction sound from the supercharger sings [...]

Australian motorsport fans with memories of the pre-V8 Supercar days will remember the likes of Tony Longhurst and even Peter Brock getting around in E30 BMW M3s fighting it out against the dominant Ford Sierra Cosworths. Another name that was always loyal to the little Bimmers was Peter Doulman with his M3 Motorsports team. Indeed, [...]