Nov 19, 2000
\nDartford, England — Team USA Scholarship winner Phil Giebler scored a storybook victory at Brands Hatch, England, this afternoon to clinch the hard-fought Formula Palmer Audi Winter Series championship. Giebler’s triumph ensured the third winter series title in as many years for Team USA Scholarship drivers.<\/p>\n
Giebler, 21, a former karting star from Oxnard, Calif., who has raced in France for the past two years, was in masterful form at the Brands Hatch \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Indy\u00e2\u20ac\u009d circuit, despite having missed the series test day on Thursday due to a prior commitment with the Paul Stewart Racing Formula 3 team. Giebler qualified on pole for both of today\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s races. He was beaten into second place in the first race by teenaged Czechoslovakian Jaroslav Janis — ensuring that five drivers held a legitimate title hope prior to the final race — but the gifted American came back with a vengeance to lead from flag to flag in Race Two.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I made sure I got a killer start. I knew it would put me in good shape, because it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s very difficult to pass at this track,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said an ecstatic Giebler after following in the footsteps of fellow Californian Paul Edwards, who won the 1998 Formula Opel Winter Series and 1999 Formula Palmer Audi Winter Series carrying the Team USA Scholarship colors.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m thrilled to be the Winter Series champion. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been an unbelievable weekend, and this is the icing on the cake. It was a do or die situation. Five people could win the championship; whoever won the race would win the championship. I was under pressure the whole race. When I saw the checkered flag, I said, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcThank God!\u00e2\u20ac\u2122\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Team USA Scholarship teammate Joey Hand was out of luck today. He qualified third for Race One but was punted off on the first lap and did well to fight his way back to eighth. A sixth-place finish in the final race left him a disappointed sixth in the final points table.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It was a tough day,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Hand, 21, from Sacramento, Calif. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Everything went wrong. I guess I used up my luck at Snetterton [last week]. But hey, I learned more these last two weekends than in three years of racing. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s been a fantastic experience. I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t say enough for everyone who has worked so hard to put this scholarship program together, and at the end of the day it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s good that Phil was able to take the championship for Team USA.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Nov 19, 2000 Dartford, England — Team USA Scholarship winner Phil Giebler scored a storybook victory at Brands Hatch, England, this afternoon to clinch the hard-fought Formula Palmer Audi Winter Series championship. Giebler’s triumph ensured…<\/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\/1559"}],"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=1559"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1559\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1560,"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1559\/revisions\/1560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}