Feb 2, 2002
\nPalmerston North, New Zealand — Bryan Sellers today put himself in a perfect position to clinch the prestigious New Zealand International Formula Ford Championship by qualifying his Canterbury Motor Racing School\/Crawford Services-prepared, Team USA Scholarship Van Diemen on the front row of the grid for the first of two series-deciding races at Manfeild Autocourse on Sunday.
\n\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I ran by myself the whole session [today in qualifying] and went faster than everybody, except for one lap set in the draft by Kenny Smith,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Sellers, 19, from Centerville, Ohio. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It was pretty uneventful actually. The car was good, and very consistent.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Sellers will therefore line up on the outside of the front row of the grid, alongside veteran polesitter Kenny Smith, who, at the age of 60, shows no sign of slowing down. The gifted young American currently holds a handsome points lead, 168-122 over another New Zealander, Fabian Coulthard, after six of eight races.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The game plan is just to finish decent,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Sellers, who is seeking to clinch the fourth championship in as many years for the Team USA Scholarship program. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153If I finish in the top three, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s all done. Otherwise, just finish, really, because two top-10s will do.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Teammate A.J. Allmendinger, by contrast, has suffered a couple of thoroughly dispiriting days at the fast and technical Manfeild circuit. His efforts during practice on Friday were thwarted by a blown engine. The team worked wonders to hustle a replacement motor overnight from its shop near Christchurch, on the South Island, to the track this morning, but it proved to be drastically down on power, leaving the 20-year-old from Hollister, Calif., a frustrated ninth among the tightly packed grid.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m almost as disappointed as I could be,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Allmendinger this evening. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no one\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fault, everyone on the team has worked their butts off, but the motor\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s nowhere near where it needs to be. I drove the car as fast as it could go and that was the best I could do. But we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not giving up. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll sit down, figure out what our options are, and hopefully come back strong tomorrow.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Feb 2, 2002 Palmerston North, New Zealand — Bryan Sellers today put himself in a perfect position to clinch the prestigious New Zealand International Formula Ford Championship by qualifying his Canterbury Motor Racing School\/Crawford Services-prepared,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"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\/1530"}],"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=1530"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1530\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1531,"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1530\/revisions\/1531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}