2012 MINI Cooper

YEAR: 2012
MODEL: MINI Cooper (R56)
VIN: #T185073
ENGINE: 1.6L Inline Four-Cylinder
CURB WEIGHT: 2,535 LBS.
TOP SPEED: 130 MPH
PRICE WHEN NEW: $19,500 plus racing modifications
BUILD DATE: October 31, 2011
NUMBER BUILT: Unknown
COLOR: Lightning Blue Metallic
OWNERS: Brad Davis (Since 2011)
LOCATION: Summerville, South Carolina
NICKNAME: N/A

It may come as a surprise but until 2011 there was no official MINI motorsports effort. It took the people at Hendrick Motorsports to make the idea of an official racing MINI a reality and being Hendrick, they did it in a big way. Instead of setting up an amateur SCCA car, they built a car for IMSA and the Pirelli World Challenge pro series. B-Spec racing is a class of road racing using cars from the B-Segment, also known as subcompacts. 

Brad Davis was the Executive General Manager at Rick Hendrick Imports in Charleston, SC. They were one of the first 80 MINI dealers in the US when the franchise came to BMW dealers in 2002. They talked MINI USA into giving several dealers cars to race. Brad was on that group and drove a factory MINI in SCCA competition for 10 years.

Brad attended the 2011 PRI Show when Mazda and Honda debuted their idea of racing base economy cars and calling it B-Spec. Brad called MINIUSA and told them we needed to participate.  MINI USA didn’t have a Motorsport division in the US, so they bounced it back to me with permission to put together the required factory modification kit. They got the car and kit approved and their dealership distributed the kits to build the B-Spec MINIs. This is the first car built from a brand-new road car. 

In 2012 Brad’s son, Robbie, drove the car in IMSA’s B-Spec series. Robbie won more races than anyone else and finished on the podium in all but one race. In 2013 we shifted to the Pirelli World Challenge series and won the TCB championship.