May 30, 2009
\nRancho Santa Margarita, Calif. \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Team USA Scholarship drivers have continued to display their skills this week, with Josef Newgarden earning an emotional victory this afternoon at Rockingham in England and Joey Hand emerging narrowly ahead of fellow former Team USA Scholarship winner Andy Lally after a thrilling Koni Challenge Grand Sports race last Monday at Lime Rock Park in rural Connecticut.<\/p>\n
The month of May has been a roller-coaster ride for 18-year-old Newgarden. The 2008 Team USA Scholarship winner returned to his home in Tennessee for a brief break earlier in the month, then learned the shattering news that his UK Formula Ford team owner Joe Tandy had died in a road accident. Tandy was just 26 years old. The pair had forged a close bond since joining forces this year.<\/p>\n
Newgarden traveled back to his UK base in Oxford this week with a heavy heart, and was intent on doing his level best to honor Tandy\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s memory when the MSA Formula Ford Championship of Great Britain reconvened this weekend at the Rockingham road course which is situated close to Joe Tandy Racing\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s base in Bedford.<\/p>\n
He did just that. After qualifying second fastest, Newgarden moved his No. 21 JTR\/Robo-Pong Mygale SJ09 into the lead at the start. The gifted young American lost his advantage moments before a full-course caution but promptly regained the lead at the restart and then pulled away to score his second Formula Ford victory of the season.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153This win was for Joe,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d declared Newgarden. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It was a very emotional time for the whole team. First of all, it was nice to get back and be with everyone because it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a big family team. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve still got a long way to go this weekend, with two more races tomorrow, but this was definitely a very positive day.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Earlier in the week at Lime Rock Park, Hand and Lally, who were awarded Team USA Scholarships in 2000 and 1999 respectively, put on quite a show during Round Five of the Grand-Am Koni Challenge Grand Sports division.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Andy Lally is a professional and you have to pull every trick in the book to get by him,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d noted Hand, who took the lead at Big Bend with 22 minutes remaining before taking the checkered flag to win aboard the No. 97 Turner Motorsports BMW M3 he shared with veteran Chris Gleason.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Joey was giving me a couple nudges to remind me he was back there,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Lally after finishing second in the No. 41 TRG\/Magnus Racing Porsche GT3 which was started by co-driver John Potter. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I would have done the same thing, only harder! I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve had a bunch of great races with Joey in the past, and this is another that will go down in the history books.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
May 30, 2009 Rancho Santa Margarita, Calif. \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Team USA Scholarship drivers have continued to display their skills this week, with Josef Newgarden earning an emotional victory this afternoon at Rockingham in England and Joey…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1252,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1251"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1251"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1251\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1253,"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1251\/revisions\/1253"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}