An Interview with Two-Time Rolex Series GT Champion Bill Auberlen
NATE SIEBENS: Good evening, everybody. Thanks for joining us on our Grand American Rolex Sports Car Series presented by Crown Royal Special Reserve media teleconference. This evening we're joined by two-time Rolex Series GT champion Bill Auberlen, driver of the No. 05 Sigalsport BMW M3. Bill will be racing in this weekend's Rolex Series GT Challenge at Lime Rock Park a week from today. Bill will also be participating in the Grand-Am Cup Series event earlier in the day.
Without further ado, let's go ahead and welcome Bill to the call. Bill, just talk a little bit about how it feels to be going back to Lime Rock Park. Obviously, it's a historic venue and I understand you've had some success there in the past. Talk about that.
BILL AUBERLEN: It's great that Grand-Am is going back there. You can't keep me away from Lime Rock very long. I've been going back year after year. For some reason, that track is pretty good to me. I think I've won there, I want to say, four out of the last five years with different events that I've run. It's been very good to me. It is a great piece of the world. I'm really happy to be running two events there on Monday.
NATE SIEBENS: Talk a little bit about some of the challenges of racing there at Lime Rock. Also, talk about the tradition of sports car racing that Lime Rock has, particularly on Memorial Day weekend.
BILL AUBERLEN: This is truly a tradition. I've been coming here for as long as I can remember on this weekend. What's really nice is we have the Sunday break. We watch the Indianapolis 500 usually or something like that. We come back on Monday. It's got a different feel to it. To be on such a big weekend, a holiday weekend like this, a lot of people come out. You will find those hills completely packed with people.
To do well in front of them is a big bonus. To be in such a nice part of the country is fantastic. It is one of the races that I take my wife to every single year. I just love it.
NATE SIEBENS: We're all looking forward to it. With that, we'll open it up to questions from our friends in the media.
Q. There's at least one Daytona Prototype owner that won't be going to Lime Rock. This team owner has won the Daytona 24, the Rolex 24 at Daytona, Sebring, a number of races. I'm curious, why is it that you don't find yourself presently racing with a top-shelf Prototype-style team? I don't want to denigrate the BMW team you're running with now, but in the grand scheme of things, the Prototype series seems to be the top of the heap. I'm curious as to why you're not there.
BILL AUBERLEN: Well, there's a simple reason for it. I've been contracted to the BMW factory, whether it be BMW AG or BMW North America, for the last 10 and a half years. Every time I renegotiate my contract for the next year, it says, ‘Here is what we want you to drive, here is what we don't want you to drive.’ When I say ‘Daytona Prototype,’ they say, ‘If we you want to do it, we want you in with a BMW motor.’ They make that the stipulation.
This year I got the opportunity to drive with Southard Racing in their Daytona Prototype in Long Beach. It was a one-off race. I showed up at Long Beach and went from mid-pack up to the front and finished third.
Let me tell you, it is great. I'm pushing pretty hard to make sure there's a BMW-powered Prototype team there next year for me to sit in. If you notice, everything I drive is BMW powered. That's based on my contract. Sure enough, the big problem with that is there's not a lot of BMW-powered Prototype cars for me to hop into.
Q. You motocrossed way back when. I'm curious to know what it was that drove you to make that switch from the two-wheel to four-wheel variety of motorsports?
BILL AUBERLEN: My dad came from Stuttgart, Germany. His dream was to come to America and race cars. That was his dream. He came over and he didn't have a job, but he had a will and a desire to want to do it. He raced motorcycles in the desert. Me being a five-year-old kid and a four-year-old kid, growing up, that's all I wanted to do, was race motorcycles.
Then I started to watch my dad get into Porsche owners club at a real low level. I followed him as an eight-year-old kid to all the races, loving it. Then he came to your end of town, ran a 24-hour race in just a makeshift Porsche 911 RSR. I was on the crew, and I was lucky enough to start driving the truck around the country. Eventually when I turned 17, I got the opportunity to drive Daytona with him in that Porsche.
That's how I kind of made the switch from motorcycles to cars, I was following my dad. It was my dream to follow my dad wherever he went. He was racing. Man, it just made it really enjoyable.
Q. What was it that got you and BMW hooked up together?
BILL AUBERLEN: It's a funny story actually. There was a year that I had to run my own team. It was me and a whole bunch of my friends. We'd work at our Porsche repair shop during the day from eight to five. From five to 12 every single night for three years we worked on this Mazda RX-7. We raced it around the country in our little moving van. It was a little joke.
We became so effective at running this little car that we wound up winning eight races in a row. We still have records in IMSA that stand with that little car.
BMW came out with John Paul Jr., David Donohue, Pete Halsmer, and it was Tom Milner running their program. They never won. They never beat us. They never qualified on the pole. They couldn't beat us. Everything was in our way with the rules.
After about two years of that, I heard that BMW was going to lose their program. Nothing was going for me really right, so I said, ‘You know what, I'm going to try a new technique and twist their arm a little bit.’ I twisted their arm, called them and said, ‘I'll leave my Mazda at home.’ This was for Texas World Speedway. ‘I'll leave my Mazda at home, you guys put me in one of your cars.’ I didn't think it would work, but what harm would it do.
They called me back about an hour later and said, ‘You know what, we'll do it.’ They put me in a car. It worked out that the car they stuck me in was super fast. I led the race, but the car broke and we still didn't win. The next race we went to, Sears Point, we finished one, two, three. They hired me on to run with them. I've been with them ever since.
Q. Speaking of that BMW program, in 2000 you were driving a V-12 LMR at Road Atlanta. You kind of took off, didn't you?
BILL AUBERLEN: I took off backwards. We knew that these flat-bottom cars were a little bit unstable when air would come across the nose differently. Mercedes had these big issues in Le Mans where they flipped three times. This is funny. Coming out of motocross racing, if you go off a jump and the rear wheel is down, you hit the brake and it comes right on over. I always told myself, ‘If ever it's going to go up, how hard would it be to hit the brakes, the nose is going to come right down.’ This seems really like a very simple train of thought, right?
I was racing with the Olive Garden, Rafanelli car, going down the back straight. He saw I had a run on him. He covered up the front of my car with his car, and I must have been six inches behind this guy. We're going 170 miles an hour, and I felt the buffeting on my head. I thought, ‘That's pretty close.’ Believe it or not, my head went forward, my visor opened while I was going forward. I thought, ‘This is all kind of wrong.’ All of a sudden it took off, went way up in the air and flipped over. Like a rollercoaster ride, you get bent over with the g force. At that point I was thinking, ‘Man, I hope this goes all the way over.’ Sure enough, went all the way over and all four wheels fell off. There was this horrendous noise, an engine screaming away. Not only was I so brilliant at not hitting the brakes when it went over, I was still flat on the floor with the accelerator.
As long as you don't hit something that stops you hard at the end, it doesn't hurt that bad. This one didn't hurt at all.
Q. You've won with a couple different cars at Lime Rock. Is there much of a difference in the way you run them or is it just a matter of, once you've gotten that course down, it doesn't really matter what car you jump in there?
BILL AUBERLEN: We're going to find that out this weekend hopefully. But, you know, the weird thing is how hard is that track? That track has a few right turns and one left-hand turn. It really cannot be that difficult.
For some reason, maybe I just had good cars under me year after year. I've been lucky, but I've kind of been able to just have really good success there. I'm not sure why because that track is not that hard. Especially when it rains, I've had really good luck there.
There's no real cut and dry answer. It just comes. I mean, who knows. The BMW this year is a little bit -- it's not really the fastest car this year. We're struggling. They just gave us 75 pounds off the car just now. We're going to take the lead out and see if it actually goes a little bit quicker. Let's keep our fingers crossed.
Q. Do you drive the cars differently at Lime Rock depending on which car you jump in?
BILL AUBERLEN: Every car has to be driven differently, for sure. I've driven the 333 Ferraris there, Riley & Scotts there, the Panoz there, Mazda RX-7, BMW. You name it, I've driven it there. Every one wants its own bit of technique, that is for sure. No two cars drive exactly the same.
I've always been fortunate enough to be able to jump right out of a GT car to a GS car to an IT car to a Prototype car. To me, they're all the same. You get in, if you can drive a race car, you can sort of swing anything. You just have to put your head down, remember that you either have carbon brakes or steel brakes. The biggest difference is the braking zones and the amount of downforce you carry. Once you sort of get your head screwed on straight, you can make them all go fast.
Q. You alluded to it earlier, can you talk about the significance of racing on this really packed holiday weekend where there's a lot of racing going on around the country and the world?
BILL AUBERLEN: To be there on that weekend with that many people just makes, if you do well, the burnouts that you do in front of that hillside even more gratifying. These people, they're cheering. I can feel them. Then if you make it to Victory Lane, you see them all, they're all smiling. You really feel the energy. It's a great place to go. You see a lot of families show up. They all seem to have a good time. You don't know where they all come from, but man, a lot of people show up. It is quite an event.
Up top they always have the vendors and everything going on. It's a great place to bring your family and have a good time.
Q. Putting you on the spot, why should people be watching your series this weekend rather than focusing on the Indy 500 or the Coca-Cola 600?
BILL AUBERLEN: How about when they're done with the Indy 500 on Sunday, they can enjoy that all they want, just tune us in on the next day and come on over. We're after that on Monday.
Q. The situation going around, the city wouldn't allow Sunday racing? Is that correct?
BILL AUBERLEN: Yeah. I mean, I don't know if you know this better than I do. I watched a video about this a long time ago when it was built. I don't really remember the exact reason, but it was something -- some peace law about maybe church. I don't even remember. Maybe somebody else knows better than I do.
Q. That's sort of a blessing in disguise because people can focus on Sunday and Monday you're there.
BILL AUBERLEN: That's it. There's a big perk. We’ve got a great venue to come and watch. Indy is a staple of America. You come, and that's it. You watch that on Sunday, then get to sort of calm down, finish off your great weekend by watching us on Monday.
Q. You drove for the PTG team for a while. You rotated around the cars. Now this year you had to move to Sigalsport. Why would the PTG program not continue in the Rolex Series?
BILL AUBERLEN: They decided to change their marketing strategy and go to an alternative series, try something a little bit different. That's where they are. We compete there also.
I run over probably 40 races a year now. I’ve got a really busy schedule. I just raced this weekend. I'm going to race next weekend. I've raced the last three weekends straight. I mean, I drive from one series to the next, sometimes racing two series on the same weekend.
They redirected and went somewhere else. Sigalsport wound up buying three of the PTG cars, then they called me and said, ‘You know a lot about these cars, how about coming over.’ It seemed like a fit and was something I could do, which is under my BMW structure, I only get to drive certain cars. I'm trying to help another young driver come up through the ranks.
Q. You said you race in so many different series per year, what is it that makes you pick and choose? Is that the just the life of a road racer? You're trying to get as many rides as you can?
BILL AUBERLEN: Yeah, that was it. You know, when you're struggling for jobs, you tend to wish that you had everything you could. Then this year for some reason, I heard that this team was doing it, this team was racing, this team was racing. I was like a squirrel trying to get all these nuts. I put all these nuts in my little nest or whatever. I wound up getting all the jobs. I wondered, ‘How is this going to be doing all these races?’
Now that I got them, I don't really have a life. I can't remember what my wife looks like any more. I mean, it's great. It's a great way to make a living. But it's a tough way to make a living.
As long as you're racing a great car like a BMW, this is something that's taken me to so many wins and so many championships, I'm racing in like three different M3s, one 325. It's a great year.
Q. You're able to work everything out schedule-wise? There aren't a lot of conflicts?
BILL AUBERLEN: There are a few. Then what happens is a couple of other drivers sometimes do different events. We hire a Learjet or something, jump out of one race in the middle of the night. I raced Houston on Friday night a couple weeks ago, then jumped on a jet and flew to Phoenix. The moment I landed in Phoenix, I raced a race. We finished third. Then I jumped into the evening race and raced that race right after that.
Sometimes they're close, but you can make them. At the end of the day there's only one race that is going to be a dead-on conflict I can't make. What is going to happen, the Sigalsport team is going to lose me for that weekend because I have to go to the BMW factory team for that one.
Q. How much do you see your home?
BILL AUBERLEN: I haven't been home in five weeks, not a day in five weeks. I heard it's nice, though.
Q. It's not a life you mind? You enjoy racing that much that sacrificing home for good parts of the year is okay?
BILL AUBERLEN: Yeah, it has to be. It's a life I chose. If you want to be good at what you do, you have to be totally dedicated to what you do. I don't think some people realize the dedication that these NASCAR, Formula One, the top CART guys do, the IRL people, the dedication they have to do to be at the top is so much. I'm 37 years old. I'm not sure if I'm ever going to have a family because I don't think it's totally fair to have a family and leave for five weeks at a time, come home for a couple days, turn around, peel out the other way. I have a wife that's starting to feel the pain of it a little bit. I take her to as many races as I can. One of the best ones I'm going to take her to is Lime Rock. It will be nice.
Q. When you talk about the dedication that the guys at the upper echelon series have, don't you in some ways have to have more dedication when you're going from one series to the next? At least they have a little more structure.
BILL AUBERLEN: Yeah, and they all have some breathing room. You need so much dedication to it, when you get out of one car, you've already prethunk all through the night the other car, the other series. When I get to the gym, all I do is I train, sit on this treadmill or running or whatever I do, all that runs through my head is exactly what's going to happen the next week. I try to put it all in perspective and run every scenario through my head before I get there. It's just four times the amount of work now. You either do it right or you make it look really bad. You need to just put your head into it and do it as well as you can.
Q. How much longer can you do something like that?
BILL AUBERLEN: Here is how long. People say, ‘When are you going to retire?’ I'm 37 years old and pretty much at the top of my game. They say, ‘When are you going to retire?’ To answer the first part of the question, ‘How much longer can I do four series?’ I'm not sure if I'm going to do that next year because it's no life and all racing. I need to balance it just a hair better than that. ‘When are you going to retire?’ That is when these young kids can beat me that come on the team. Until they do that, I think I'm still going to just keep on banging away at it.
Q. When you race at Lime Rock, you spoke of it as being a bunch of right turns, one left turn, what is it that you find challenging about racing at Lime Rock and are able to so successfully overcome that? What turns you on most about racing on that track?
BILL AUBERLEN: I've had some great challenges that were put against me. One time we had a change of engine before the race and I had to start in the middle of the rain from pit lane dead last. I wound up winning that race. I think I passed 56 cars to do it. You always put another challenge in front of you. One year it will be to be the fastest you can be, qualify, get the pole. Ultimately it's always to win the race. Strategically, maybe one year it's about how to do your fuel stops better than somebody else. The track kind of remains the same. It's every year to structure whatever equipment you have the way to get yourself to Victory Lane. Sometimes it's not always so clear, but in Lime Rock it seems to be a little more clear than anywhere else.
Q. You have the physique of a linebacker. You obviously stay in excellent shape. What did you do at Redondo Beach when you grew up? Did you play athletics at all?
BILL AUBERLEN: I played soccer for a lot of years because my family came from Germany. That was a very big part of our upbringing. Then when I got into high school, I started playing high school football. That's where you started getting bigger and bigger. That wasn't so conducive to racing.
I have a body physique that can move around if I let it. Then when you race World Challenge, they weigh the driver with the car. You can be stronger and physically bigger, I can put on 15 pounds, be a lot more muscular. Other years, they weigh the car by itself. It benefits you to lose weight.
This year I tried coming in like that. I went from 170-something pounds to 156, 157 pounds. I lost a lot of weight. I tried it. I thought, you know what, I just don't look like I want to look. Then I changed it up a bit, added a few more pounds of muscle, now I'm in the low 160s. But it looks a lot different.
You're even trying to find an advantage to lose 10 pounds on your body that equates to a better time at the end of your stint. That's part of what I've done kind of my whole life.
NATE SIEBENS: At this time we'll go ahead and wrap it up for the evening. Thanks, Bill, for joining us. We really appreciate it. Good luck this weekend in both the Grand-Am Cup Series on Monday morning and the Rolex Series on Monday afternoon.
