Given the Daytona performance, it was no surprise at Sebring when Giovanis and Murry took second in the Microsoft Visual Studio 150. 

 

While the next race produced a 12th-place finish at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, Giovanis and Murry are tied for the lead in the ST point standings – and team founder Giovanis is looking to stay there. 

 

Giovanis, a businessman in the health care industry, took time to talk about the development of Team TGM and his goals for the season.

 

“We made some investments and tried to build a team, but it really started in earnest in 2013. Basically, we were not doing it right before that. We were ‘playing in the sandbox,’ but we weren’t really doing it. I had a conversation with my good buddy Will Turner, and he explained that I would have to do it differently. ‘It’s going to cost more money, but it’s going to be more rewarding in the long term.’ It wasn’t going to work the way we were doing it.”

 

David Murry came on board in a tri-role – driver, team manager and driver coach. We moved the shop to Atlanta from up here (in Maryland), and eventually moved into a larger building outside Turn 1 at Road Atlanta in 2014. That was a big move. We reconstituted the team. We have a new platform, we have a new hauler. We put the right components together in 2013 and are putting the right players in the right jobs. There were four distinct programs: our car development program; the motor development program; the team composition and development; and lastly, driver development. At different times in the course of the last three years – I’m including 2015 as the third year – one of those pieces was the weakest link. We kept working in trying to improve everything, and the program evolved. This year, one of the largest improvements that we made was in car handling.”

 

“We spent two of the worst days that the crew has ever spent at Road Atlanta in January. We were by ourselves, and it never got above 11 or 12 degrees. But we were able to learn something in those conditions that was a key to what the car wanted. We tried out something, and the car really came alive. That was a turning point for us in performance. Once we found that, we could leverage that. Now, we’re working on driver development and other areas. I’m in the car at least once every two weeks; some of the other guys are in the car four days a week.”

 

“We did a really good pit stop at Sebring, but then we had a little hitch in our pit stop at [Mazda Raceway] that caused us to go a lap down. Otherwise we might have been in the top five at Laguna – and that’s not our good track. We’ll have these ups and downs, but we’re confident we’re going forward. Like most of the teams, all of our guys wear Go-Pros on their helmets; we have a Go-Pro on a boom; we time every segment of a pit stop; we do all kinds of things to try to find our weakest link. And that’s not accusatory – it’s trying to improve, to do a little bit better at the margins. In a pit stop, a second counts. It could be track position that we can’t get on the track, due to not being fast enough or car handling. It’s all about the team, and getting each of the players to do their part to get the best out of every situation.”

 

“It takes me about three years to learn a track – and by three years, I mean three times at the track, to learn its nuances. The more I’m in the car, the more that learning curve speeds up. Now, with the exception of Circuit of The Americas and maybe [Canadian Tire Motorsport Park], I’ve been at all of the tracks more than three times. And Mosport seems to fit me – I like higher-speed sweepers. And David’s adaptation rate is great, and he helps me along through data and video. When we find problems, we fix them. For an example, last year at VIR, I was hit by another car that knocked everything sideways. Because COTA was only a couple of weeks after that – and we couldn’t get the car fixed in time – we had to miss COTA. That destroyed any chance we had of being a contender, even for a top 10. Because of that, we now have a whole spare race car.”

 

“We have big names for our two cars – ‘A’ and ‘B.’ The ‘A’ car is the ex-Turner car, and that’s the one you see most of the time. The ‘B’ car is the 2014 BimmerWorld No. 81. The only difference is that the B car has blue mirrors, and the A car has orange mirrors. The only reason the B car exists is so we don’t have to miss a race. The B car is generally in a state of preparation where it’s no more than a day away from being ready. We got burned last year because we didn’t have a backup, and if we want to contend for anything, we’ve got to have a contingency plan. Now, we’ve got one. It might seem like overkill, but when I heard James (Clay of BimmerWorld) was selling off his E90 chassis, I spoke with him. I told him I wanted the car (Greg) Liefooghe drove – he finished in the top five in the points.”

 

We might switch to a newer platform next year – as many folks might – but we’re 100-percent committed to running these platforms for this year. We can’t afford in the middle of the year to risk DNFs, which is our nemesis. We’d rather have a car that’s a little slower that we know will not break.”

 

“I like Watkins Glen. I was there in club racing, and when I first started out in GRAND-AM in 2006, the car was prepped by a team out of Rochester, so we did all of our testing at Watkins Glen. So I’m very familiar with that track, and last year, it was a place where I wasn’t very much slower than David last year. We’re pretty hopeful about going back to The Glen. I might even have more laps there than any other track – even VIR – so I’m looking forward to racing there.”