Daytona Beach, Florida - Multimatic Motorsports suffered an up-and-down 2014 Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge (CTSC) that saw a lot of bad luck and wrecked machinery but also an impressive double-podium at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park, ownership of the front row at COTA and a huge win by Billy Johnson and Ian James to end the season at Road Atlanta. The team is looking to carry this momentum from the final races of last season into a very bright looking new year that will see the debut of the new Mustang, two new driver line-ups and the addition of young hot-shoe Austin Cindric to the already loaded Multimatic roster.
Multimatic veteran, Canadian Motorsports Hall of Fame Inductee and two-time series Champion, Scott Maxwell will have a new co-driver for 2015 in the form of Billy Johnson, one of the winningest drivers in series history. Every single win the Boss 302R has accumulated in CTSC competition has come at the hands of one of these two drivers. Johnson shared the #158 Multimatic Motorsports/Miller Racing Mustang with Ian James last season and the pair secured three podium finishes, the win at Road Atlanta and 7th in the Driver's Points.
Maxwell's co-driver for the past two seasons, Jade Buford, is stepping up to a lead role this year in the #158 Mustang. Buford holds the record for the most CTSC pole positions in a season, capturing 6 of 11 in 2013, and is the only CTSC driver to secure pole twice in a row at the BMW Performance 200 at Daytona. Buford and Maxwell finished 4th in Driver's Points in 2013 and 3rd in 2014.
Buford will be joined in the #158 by Multimatic's newest driver, the very young and incredibly quick Austin Cindric. At only 16 years old, Cindric already has an incredible resume that includes an X-Games medal in the Red Bull Global Rallycross Lites Series and ten top-ten finishes in USF2000 in 2014. He is also the youngest driver to ever podium in USF2000, the youngest driver to ever win an Historic Sportscar Racing Series race and later this year will become the youngest driver to ever compete in the legendary Bathurst 12-Hour, where he will pilot the Erebus Motorsports Mercedes SLS AMG GT3.
At the ROAR Before The 24 Test at Daytona early in January the team definitely proved that they are ready for 2015 when Billy Johnson set the fastest lap of the test and an unofficial lap record with a time of 1:55.794, besting teammate Buford's pole time from 2014. The pace continued into race week at Daytona as the #15 Multimatic Mustang set the fastest time in two of the three practice sessions. Maxwell went on to qualify the #15 on pole position Thursday afternoon, giving Multimatic a 3rd straight Daytona pole. Newcomer Cindric put the #158 an incredible P4, less than half a second off of Maxwell's time.
The BMW Performance 200 starts at 1:45 ET, January 23rd. Expectations are high, the team's optimism is palpable and it looks as if 2015 is shaping up to be a banner year for Multimatic.