Insight: Turner Motorsport's Road to BMW Stardom

A look into Turner's humble beginnings, 26 years of success, as it becomes the team with most BMW starts worldwide...

Turner Motorsport has been one of the handful of remaining active sports car racing teams that came out of the Grand-Am/American Le Mans Series merger in 2014, yet the Will Turner-led organization dates back considerably even further, to 1998, when Turner got its professional start in what was then SCCA World Challenge.

And when the New England-based organization takes to the grid for Sunday’s Motul Course de Monterey presented by Hyundai N, Turner will surpass legendary German outfit Schnitzer Motorsport as the team with the most starts with BMW race cars in the world.

From humble beginnings to its record-breaking 557th start, Turner has been synonymous with BMW and its signature yellow-and-blue liveries.

"Back in 1998, I remember when we built the cars to do our first pro start, I didn't know if it was going to be a one-race wonder of if I'd have the resources and/or the drive to do another one,” recalls Turner. “For sure back then, when I started, I had no idea it would come to what it's become.”

Financing the first year of his race team through cash advances on credit cards accumulated from college, Turner recalled all-nighters at his first race shop, and at races, sleeping five crew members to a hotel room to save money, some of whom were volunteers.

“It really was a beat-up Chevy dually [truck] with mismatched tires towing a wobbly old transporters,” he says. “It was definitely a scene back then, but we had fun with it and every year we added a little more upgrades, starting with getting people hotel rooms with at least two or three to a room.”

It came all while trying to build two companies, both carrying the Turner Motorsport name, with Turner also selling aftermarket parts for road-going BMWs.

"Fortunately, the better the race team did, the better the parts company did and vice-versa,” Turner says. “Years later, the parts company was cranking and I'd like to think it was due to the marketing that the race team would shed them. 

"It's hard to come up with the [return on investment] from the race team back to the business but it certainly put us on the map and gave us credibility. We still have a lot of Turner Motorsport parts fans as we do yellow-and-blue race car fans."