Jan 7, 2005
\nTimaru, New Zealand \u00e2\u20ac\u201c\u00e2\u20ac\u201c Team USA Scholarship driver Slade Miller has made steady progress during two days of testing with his patriotically liveried Stealth\/Van Diemen at Timaru International Motor Raceway on New Zealand\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s South Island. The 18-year-old from Edmond, Oklahoma, is now eager to begin his international career tomorrow, in the first of three New Zealand Formula Ford Championship races to be held this weekend on the 2.4-kilometer (1.49-mile) road course.
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Testing has gone well and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m really looking forward to seeing how I stack up against the rest of the field in the races,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Miller. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153At the start of today I was a little bit frustrated, being a little more off the pace than I wanted to be, but we worked hard at it and the car is definitely handling better. By the end of the day I was pleased, because we were just a few tenths [of a second] down on the pace-setters.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Miller\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fastest lap today was 1m 06.33s, which last year would have been good enough for a top-three position in qualifying, just a tenth slower than the pole position lap — set in the very same car — by another Team USA Scholarship representative, Joe D\u00e2\u20ac\u2122Agostino. (Incidentally, current Champ Car rising star A.J. Allmendinger also took the pole at Timaru aboard a Team USA Scholarship car in 2002.) Still, Miller knows full well that the past 12 months has witnessed constant engine development in the ultra-competitive New Zealand Formula Ford series \u00e2\u20ac\u201c especially on the lighter aluminum cylinder heads which have been introduced over the past couple of years \u00e2\u20ac\u201c resulting in faster lap times at most venues. He knows, too, that there is more to come from both himself and his car.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We still have a bit too much understeer, which is hurting my lap times in two key places, but we know what we want to do for the car in time for qualifying tomorrow,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he continued. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The car has proved very responsive so far, so if it reacts the way we expect it to, I think we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be looking to do fairly well.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
The Timaru race track is tight and twisty, but Miller has enjoyed its technical challenges: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I like the track,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s tight and has a lot of flowing corners where you have to be smooth in order to be fast. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s relatively flat but it does have some fun aspects.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Jan 7, 2005 Timaru, New Zealand \u00e2\u20ac\u201c\u00e2\u20ac\u201c Team USA Scholarship driver Slade Miller has made steady progress during two days of testing with his patriotically liveried Stealth\/Van Diemen at Timaru International Motor Raceway on New…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1469,"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\/1468"}],"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=1468"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1468\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1470,"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1468\/revisions\/1470"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}