Opelika, AL – APR Motorsport is very proud to announce the signing of Sabine Schmitz, the winningest female endurance racer in the world, as a team driver. Sabine will join the team for her first of two initial races at Iowa Motor Speedway this coming weekend, co-driving the #181 APR Motorsport/Team Janica Racing VW GTI with Mark White. Sabine will be filling in for Randy Pobst, who has a conflicting race in the Speed GT Series, in which he is currently the points leader and is actively defending his 2007 Championship.
In addition to her endurance successes, Sabine is perhaps equally as famous for her years as a BMW Factory Driver as well as being the “Queen of the Ring”, driving what is believed to be more laps than any other driver on the famed Nordschleife over the past decade (she estimates a lifetime total of over 23,000 laps of the 14 mile circuit). Sabine still works for BMW, driving the firms “Ring Taxi” many weekends of the year. When not on the Ring, Sabine makes frequent guest appearances on the popular BBC Television program, Top Gear, often challenging the anonymous “Stig” to race, test cars and outrunning the hosts on the Ring. Additionally, Sabine hosts her own weekly motorsports show called ʻD Motor”, on the DMAX Network, in her home country of Germany.
Sabine was the first women in the world to win a major 24 Hour race, and is the only women in the word who has two 24 Hour titles to her name, along with countless VLN Series endurance wins (VLN is a German series quite comparable to the Rolex GT series).
Sabine became fast friends with many at APR Motorsport via much testing and driving done by Ian Baas, Mark White, Dion von Moltke, Randy Pobst, as well as many of the APR staff at the Nordschleife over the past few years. So when the Speed World Challenge schedule was rearranged early this summer, causing Pobst to miss two races, it became clear very quickly that Sabine was both team, and her co-driver Mark White’s, first choice.
Sabine said about her signing: “I am really excited to get the chance to race in KONI Challenge, in a German car with Mark White and APR Motorsport. I have spent a lot of time with the APR Motorsport Team, as well as Mark over the years, including spending some time this past spring on the Nordschleife in a GTI race car. We all developed a great amount of respect and friendship for one another and I hope to do a good job for team, as filling Randy Pobst’s seat is not easy!”
White said about Sabine: “When we sat down and narrowed our choices as to who we’d like to put in #181 for these races, Sabine immediately rose to the top. She is scary fast, something I know this first hand from our time on the ‘Ring together, and has a proven ability to keep a car in one piece, as evidenced by her endurance racing success. She also brings that “Rock Star” quality, similar to Randy’s, and her presence will raise the whole team’s game. This weekend will be big fun and we should have a great shot at a podium finish!”
Sabine is tentatively scheduled to compete with APR Motorsport at the Iowa Motor Speedway and New Jersey Motorsports Park events. For information on Sabine, please follows the following links:
www.sabine-schmitz-motorsport.de
or
wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabine_schmitz
