APR Motorsport Powers Todd Buras to VW’s Two World Challenge Wins

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla.—When Todd Buras drove his Irish Mike’s Racing VW Jetta to a class win at the World Challenge Touring Car event in St. Petersburg, Florida, during the city’s rain-soaked IndyCar weekend, he was using APR Motorsports technical support to take the Irish Mike’s, APR’s, and VW’s first World Challenge Touring Car win.

APR Motorsports has more experience than any other team in the world preparing Volkswagens’s newest chassis and gasoline powerplants for competition, so it was natural Irish Mike’s Racing would turn there for support. APR Motorsports supplied special hardware and ECU calibrations for Irish Mike’s Mk V Jetta.

The win highlights APR’s retail operation: along with operating successful racing teams in Grand Am’s Continental Sports Car Challenge, APR is also a world-renowned Volkswagen Automotive Group performance enhancing engineering firm.

“The team at Irish Mike’s has done a great job of utilizing the solutions we manufacture specifically for motorsports.” said Jeff Mishtawy, Director of Motorsport for APR.  

APR Motorsports and Irish Mike’s Racing have formed a profitable partnership in Grnad Am’s Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge series, where APR’s products have helped the teams earn multiple wins, podiums and front-row qualifying spots. Irish Mike’s took the expertise gained in Grand Am and scored two class wins in the two World Challenge Touring Car heats at St. Pete.

APR Motorsport and Irish Mike’s Racing are headed to Barber Motorsport Park on April 10th for their next Grand Am race where APR Motorsport will unveil their new MK6 chassis VW GTi race car.

APR Motorsport dominated at Barber last season with components later used by Buras and Irish Mike’s to win the St. Petersburg World Challenge races.

APR Marketing Director, Keith Lucas said, “We are so proud to have assisted Irish Mike’s Racing in bringing VW its first ever win in World Challenge. Seeing the components we developed prior to anyone else become the standard worldwide across multiple series for those fielding VW cars and watching their awesome results is a great experience that we are excited to be a part of.”

The Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge Barber 200 is part of a major racing weekend featuring the IndyCar Grand Prix of Alabama and the Grand Am Rolex Porsche 250. Tickets are available at the Barber Motorsports Park ticket Web page.

The Grand Am Rolex Porsche 250 will be broadcast on SPEED at 1:30 p.m. on Saturday, April 10. The IndyCar Grand Prix of Alabama will be televised at 3:00 p.m. Sunday, April 11 on VERSUS.

The Continental Tire Sports car Challenge Barber 200 will be televised on SPEED TV at 3:00 p.m. EDT on April 17, 2010.