Oct 18, 2007 (photo by John Steflik)
\nRancho Santa Margarita, Calif. \u00e2\u20ac\u201c The 2007 season has witnessed a series of excellent performances by winners of the prestigious Team USA Scholarship, which has been nurturing the careers of talented young American race car drivers since 1990.<\/p>\n
The ball was set rolling in March, when 1991 scholarship winner Bryan Herta, from Valencia, Calif., took LMP2 class honors in the Mobil 12 Hours of Sebring sports car classic, marking a sensational debut for Andretti Green Racing\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s factory-backed XM Satellite Radio Acura team.<\/p>\n
In May, 2000 grad Phil Giebler, from Oxnard, Calif., clinched the coveted Indianapolis 500 Rookie of the Year title, driving for Playa Del Racing.<\/p>\n
More recently, 1997 and 1998 scholarship winners Paul Edwards (Banner Racing Pontiac GXP.R), from Santa Maria, Calif., and Andy Lally (TRG Porsche 911 GT3 Cup), from Dacula, Ga., battled tooth and nail for the Rolex Sports Car GT title. Ultimately, both came up a little short but they made their mark by notching a combined total of seven wins from the 13-race season.<\/p>\n
2006 Team USA Scholarship recipient Dane Cameron, from Sonoma, Calif., followed up his triumph in the Formula Palmer Audi Autumn Trophy by dominating this year\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Star Mazda Championship Presented by Goodyear, driving for JDC Motorsports. As a result, Cameron has won a fully funded ride in the 2008 Cooper Tires Presents the Champ Car Atlantic Championship Powered by Mazda, in which it was announced today he will drive for the defending champion Sierra Sierra\/ProWorks team.<\/p>\n
Last weekend, 1992 scholarship winner Tony Ave, from Mooresville, N,C., collected his first SCCA National Championship at Heartland Park Topeka. Wisconsin-born Ave dominate the GT-1 class in his self-prepped Bodin Masonry\/Pro-Motor\/Goodyear Chevrolet Camaro.<\/p>\n
This year\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s scholarship winners, Patrick Barrett and Joel Miller, also recently tied up championship crowns of their own. Barrett, 18, from Los Osos, Calif., secured the Pacific F2000 Championship Presented by Hankook, driving a Jim Russell School Van Diemen for PR1 Motorsports, while Joel Miller, 19, from Hesperia, Calif., won the BFGoodrich\/Skip Barber National Presented by Mazda.<\/p>\n
Barrett and Miller will travel next week to England to begin preparations for their assault on this year\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Formula Palmer Audi Autumn Trophy, which will comprise six races over two weekends at Brands Hatch and Snetterton.<\/p>\n
Team USA Scholarship supporters include Doug Mockett & Company, a Torrance, Calif.-based producer and supplier of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Fine Architectural Hardware For Your Fine Furniture,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Champ Car World Series, American Honda, Snap-on Stars of Karting, Silicon Salvage, Dyson Racing, Integrated Performance Technology, Pacific Coast Motorsports, Andersen Racing Team, PitFit Training, iRacing.com, AutoRacing1.com, Metalore, Sparco USA, Cooper Tire, Cosworth USA, Champ Car Atlantic Championship, Star Mazda, RACER magazine, FormulaCar Magazine, Pfanner Communications, Speedstar Management, Manifest Group, The Print Network and an array of past Scholarship winners.<\/p>\n
Photo of Tony Ave by John Steflik, courtesy of www.scca.org<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Oct 18, 2007 (photo by John Steflik) Rancho Santa Margarita, Calif. \u00e2\u20ac\u201c The 2007 season has witnessed a series of excellent performances by winners of the prestigious Team USA Scholarship, which has been nurturing the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1326,"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\/1325"}],"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=1325"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1325\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1327,"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1325\/revisions\/1327"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1326"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}