MBellRacing

I'm not sure if this is taboo to offer this on a forum or not, I'll remove it if it is!

I've been pro racing in Grand Am with Turner Motorsport for the last season and a half (teamed up with VJ Mirzayan the first year and Bill Auberlen this year) and am looking to keep busy in the off weekends. I've been lucky enough to coach a couple times privately and a few more with some schools and would like to expand that end of my career. I love spreading the knowledge I've acquired thus far and have been instructed myself by many amazing drivers and have seen what sorts of training works [at least for myself].

A little about myself:
I reside in the Bay Area, CA but am always willing to travel. Thanks to the Koni Challenge series, I have been lucky enough to see quite a few different tracks across the country including: Buttonwillow, Willow Springs, California Speedway, Infineon Raceway (Sears Point), Laguna Seca, Thunderhill, Daytona, Homestead, New Jersey Motorsport Park, Carolina Motorsport Park, Mid-Ohio, Mosport, Robling Road, Trois-Rivieres, Lime Rock, Watkins Glen, Miller Motorsport Park, and VIR.

I started my driving in an old BMW E30 M3 and was most fascinated by car control. I strongly believe that car control is something of a lost art in many amateur and semi-pro drivers. I did many track days on my own at Thunderhill, Buttonwillow, and Laguna Seca. I have done both the Skip Barber driving and racing school, the latter done all 3 days in the rain. I bought one of the old Turner Motorsport BMW 325i Touring Cars that was formerly driven by Bill Auberlen and ran that in a couple Time Attacks and in BMW Club Racing. I have competitive experience in AWD, FWD, and RWD cars.

My pro career started last year when I went on to Koni Challenge after one season of BMW Club Racing and was asked to drive with Turner Motorsport codriving with VJ Mirzayan. We had mixed results last year in the ST 330i mostly due to running an outdated car in such a progressive class. I was asked at the end of the year to move up to the GS class in the M3's and to drive with Bill Auberlen. This has definitely been my favorite season and absolutely the most successful. Mostly thanks to the instruction I received from Bill, I am very proud that I have qualified on pole 5 times in the last 7 races and never qualified lower than 3rd. Our luck hasn't turned many of those qualifyings into perfect finishes, but we've done enough to win Daytona, take 3rd at Lime Rock, 2nd at Watkins Glen, and 5th at Mid Ohio (with no brakes... GO BILL!!!). I have track lap records at Homestead, New Jersey Motorsport Park, and Laguna Seca.

On the Honda end of things (since this is a Honda forum), I have been lucky enough to have had some really fun times with the Compass 360 guys in Koni Challenge. I tested in their amazing cars alongside their hottest shoes at Mosport last year and at Mid Ohio this year I was 2nd fastest in the ST-class practice, the only car to contend against the mighty VW's up front. I even had some time there to play with the setup of those new Civics and got to see what helped and what didn't.

With these experiences I can help with car setup, learning a track, learning to read data, or just learning to use a car to its fullest.

Anyone interested in some private instruction can PM me on here and I'll do my best to accommodate you!

civichb20

Yeh this what everyone could use I will pm you as soon as I get myself and car organized which should be real soon I could use all the help I can get.
By the what is your name?

MBellRacing

I guess I should have mentioned that, huh?... My name is Matt Bell, you can see my current progress here:
http://mattbellracing.wordpress.com/

and my Koni bio here:
http://www.grand-am.com/drivers/driv...ies=k&did=2417

Just let me know whenever you're ready and we'll schedule something in between races.

raffaelli

Hey Matt, great to see you on this site. You and Bill are Rockin the Turner car this year. You guys are lots of fun to watch. just finished watching the Glen race, since first stint. Good luck with the rest of the season...we will be watching!

JW racing

Matt,
Good job racing this season! Keep it up.

A tad late on my quest you are. Mike Sweeney is my coach these days,(hopefully my crew chief at MMS-Hint) but with that said it would be interesting to get another good driver's perspective. Pm me with some 1 day info if you have time,like what you do for lessons/observations,the costs and your requirements.

Thanks

-Justin

2fast4u831

PM me as well. I'm interested.
Surge

gotocrx

+1 for Matt and Mike!

mrlegoman

Good info. Post up again if your ever traveling to the East coast. I'm desperate for some guidance.

ohsnapzafingcu

iTrader: (2)

cool!

Stefndogg

pm'd

sackdz

Hey Matt,

Welcome to the forum! I got a nice tour of the Turner facility last year from Shawn P, very nice place there. Compass cars are looking great this year! Good for you to be testing with the top teams in GS+ST.

I built those 3 "mighty VW's" you speak of. Were you co-driving with Randy Pobst at MidO this year? He was awesome to work with setting up those GTIs last year.