BMW V12 LM

Information

Team Goh was one of BMW's private entries who kept running the V12 LM in 1999 as well when the factory team upgraded into the V12 LMR and after a DNF at Le Mans they wanted a better car So what did they do? They called for Dome's services. They would be tasked with upgrading this V12 LM for the 2000 racing season. This is how the Dome-BMW V12 LMP Modify 2000 was born. This deal worked on Dome's favor too as they wanted to have a marketable race car that they designed but the last time they had that sort of involvement was in the late 80s with the Toyota 88C-V. The original chassis raced at the 1000 km Fuji in November 1999 to gather data and the car finished 3rd overall, second in class behind a Nissan R391. By mid-April 2000 the car modifications were done and on April 24th they went testing at Fuji Speedway. The problem was that the Michelin tire engineers were at Sugo for the JGTC test day so they couldn't get proper tires to have the car fully set up. The rest was ready, though. Hiroki Kato was the test driver as he drove the old car too and could compare the performance of both. He was happy by how the car turned out as he thinks it's steady and seems lighter, because it is. The BMW's top speed increased from 308 km/h to 322 and can go up to 328 depending on setup. Kato lapped the track in 1:22.57 in his best attempt, a few seconds behind the original chassis, but that was on bad tires - Dome were confident that the car could have been faster than the TS020 in race conditions, had it raced at Fuji the previous year. The car was prepared for ALMS but never raced.