Brands Hatch, England \u00e2\u20ac\u201c After a busy week in England that began with a memorable visit to the Morgan Motor Company, the world\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s oldest privately owned car manufacturer, and continued with three days of testing at the famed Brands Hatch circuit in Kent, Team USA Scholarship drivers Neil Alberico, Trent Hindman and Spencer Pigot are set to compete in this weekend\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 40th anniversary Formula Ford Festival.<\/p>\n
The Festival has been a popular, end-of-season staple at Brands Hatch since 1976, having switched from its original home at Snetterton. Former winners of the event have included current Formula One stars Jenson Button and Mark Webber. Formula Ford , too, has evolved since originating at the Kentish circuit in 1967. These days there are three Formula Ford varietals, each with its own Festival crown up for grabs. The most popular remains the traditional 1600cc \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Kent\u00e2\u20ac\u009d engine, derived from the Ford Cortina road car, which has attracted over 45 entries this weekend from a variety of nations. The 1800cc Zetec engine, which was intended to replace the aging Kent motor in 1993, also has its own division, as does the premier, modern-day FF class, featuring the fuel-injected 1600cc Duratec motor.<\/p>\n
Pigot, 18, from Orlando, Fla., will contest the Duratec event and is seeking to build upon the platform he developed last week at Silverstone, when he piloted a Ray GR10 entered by Cliff Dempsey Racing. This time he will be in the newer GR11 chassis.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Our testing has been good,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Pigot, who last year set fastest race lap in the Kent class at the festival. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We struggled a bit at Silverstone but we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been making a lot of progress these last few days and I think we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re pretty close to the leaders.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Spencer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s done a really good job,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said team owner Cliff Dempsey. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s worked really hard. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s chipped away and chipped away. He didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t go changing the car; he just concentrated on getting the most out of the car and getting on with it. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve done our homework, we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve finalized our tire strategy, so we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll see what we can do at the weekend.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Dempsey has been equally impressed with Alberico and Hindman, who will be driving in the Kent division this weekend in the distinctive red, white and blue Team USA Scholarship colors.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been on the pace since we started testing on Wednesday,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Dempsey, who guided newly crowned Firestone Indy Lights Champion Josef Newgarden to the Kent Festival title in 2008. (Newgarden remains the only American to have won a Festival crown.) \u00e2\u20ac\u0153They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re both fast and they have great attitudes.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It feels good getting back into a Kent car,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Alberico, 19, from Los Gatos, Calif., who has spent most of the 2011 season driving in a Duratec car for Dempsey in the British championship. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The car is a bit easier to drive than the Duratec and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a lot of fun. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a very competitive class but I hope we should be up toward the front.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Hindman, at 16 years of age, is the youngest of the three Team USA Scholarship winners, but has ample experience of the Kent cars having won this year\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Ontario Formula Ford series in Canada.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The main difference is the tires,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Hindman, from Wayside, N.J. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Ray chassis feels quite similar to the Van Diemen we ran in Canada but the tires we used in Canada are harder and smaller than the ones we are using over here. The Avon tires have a lot more grip and it feels like you have more control over what the car does.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Action on Saturday will comprise a qualifying session and one heat race for each of the three drivers. Finishing positions from the heat races will then determine starting positions for the next round of competition on Sunday morning. Alberico and Hindman have been drawn in separate Kent heat races, with Alberico due out on track at 9:00 for qualifying and Hindman at 9:50. Qualifying for Pigot\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Duratec heat race is slated for 11:50. Live timing is available via www.tsl-timing.com.<\/p>\n
The Team USA Scholarship program also is supported by Doug Mockett & Company, the Road Racing Drivers Club, Cooper Tire & Rubber Company, Walldinger Racing, Robo-Pong, INDYCAR\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Mazda Road to Indy, Mazda, Bondurant School of High Performance Driving, Honda Performance Development, NameSilo, Silicon Salvage, McMurry Inc., Robertson Racing, Parathyroid, PitFit Training, Sparco USA, eFormulaCarNews.com, Speedstar Management, Styled Aesthetic and Manifest Group as well as numerous past Scholarship winners.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Brands Hatch, England \u00e2\u20ac\u201c After a busy week in England that began with a memorable visit to the Morgan Motor Company, the world\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s oldest privately owned car manufacturer, and continued with three days of testing…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1780,"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\/143"}],"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=143"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1805,"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/143\/revisions\/1805"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=143"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=143"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=143"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}