Bryan Sellers Carrying Sports Car Momentum to Lime Rock
BRYAN SELLERS CARRYING SPORTS CAR MOMENTUM TO LIME ROCK
Strength of Recent Race and Testing Success Inspires Sports Car Young Gun
LAKEVILLE, CT, May 23, 2011 – For professional athletes like Bryan Sellers momentum can be critical in pursuit of a championship – or two simultaneously. In the past three weeks the Braselton, GA-resident has been able to add significantly to the energy he has been building in the season-long chase of the Grand-Am-sanctioned Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge (CTSCC) GS-class and American Le Mans Series (ALMS) GT-class titles. He hopes to continue to add to the fire on Saturday, May 28, in the Memorial Day Classic at Lime Rock Park in Lakeville, CT. Sellers will again share driving duties in the No.33 Sail on Travel Inc./Vion-Hitachi Data Systems BMW M3 Coupe with Jade Buford (Brentwood, TN). The two-hour, 30-minute Grand Sport (GS) event for production-based cars will be Sellers’ eighth sports car start of the year across all series.
Sellers, a hotly sought-after, young American driving talent, has been building momentum since the Rolex Series’ season-opening Rolex 24 Hours At Daytona (FL) where he finished second in the GT class. He followed by leading laps in the CTSCC race at Homestead-Miami Speedway and a top-five run before transmission problems sidelined his 2011 ALMS debut at the 12 Hours of Sebring. A fourth-place GT-class finish in the Long Beach Grand Prix ALMS show preceded the most recent CTSCC race at Virginia International Raceway (VIR) where he took the No.33 to a strong sixth-place result. The early-season accomplishments have been inspirational to Sellers as he challenges himself each time in the car to better his last performance.
Intermingled with the competition success, the former open wheel champion has spearheaded Falken Tire’s racing slick development for its ALMS program. A test at Road America prior to VIR reaped tremendous information for the tire manufacturer. Testing this week has Sellers and the Team Falken Tire Porsche at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course prior to his arrival to race the Kinetic Motorsports-prepared BMW at Lime Rock. While testing the No.17 Falken Porsche 911 GT3 RSR does not provide any technical feedback for the No.33 BMW, those two stops will help Sellers when he returns to race in the CTSCC and ALMS on both race courses later this season.
The CTSCC will be using Lime Rock Park’s traditional, 1.53-mile, seven-turn layout. A true road racing version of a bull-ring, Lime Rock provides nearly endless passing. Fortunately, unlike most CTSCC race weekends, the GS class will have its own race separate of the Street Tuner (ST) event. However, with 24 GS entries scheduled to make the 3:30 PM (ET) start on Saturday, Sellers will have his hands full within the top class of the CTSCC.
Practice for the Memorial Day Classic will open on Friday, May 27 with qualifying later the same day. The race will take the green flag at 3:30pm (ET), Saturday, May 28.
Television details are yet to be announced. However, live timing and scoring of the race can be found at www.Grand-Am.com with a CTSCC Twitter feed found at @CT_Challenge providing race notes.
Quotes
Bryan Sellers:
About Lime Rock Park: “Lime Rock is a very challenging race. The circuit is tricky and has some very special characteristics. However, the hardest part about Lime Rock is always managing the traffic. Even with 24 cars the track fills up very quickly! The BMW has historically been good at Lime Rock but it will be interesting to see how things play out this year. The Mustangs have been very strong at all the races and the Camaros have a ton of torque which will be a positive for them. We will have our work cut out for us.”
About Momentum: “Momentum plays a huge role in your season. Once momentum gets on your side it really increases your confidence as a driver and gives you an advantage. It is very difficult to get things rolling in your direction but once they do it plays in your favor.”
About the benefits of his testing and racing schedule: “There is no replacement for being in a race car. The more driving you do the sharper you are. There is no margin for error in any of the series so driving every weekend is a huge benefit.”
About benchmarking success from race-to-race: “I go to every weekend like it’s a new weekend and I try and use a win as the benchmark. We all show up for the same reason and that is to win the race. I use previous races to mark improvements in our programs, but I want to win every race I go to.”
For more on Bryan Sellers, please visit him on the web at www.BryanSellersRacing.com. Follow Bryan on Twitter (www.Twitter.com/BryanSellers) and Facebook.
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