Nov 18, 1999
\nFawkham, England — Fresh from scoring a pair of victories at Snetterton last Sunday, Paul Edwards was fastest throughout most of today\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Formula Palmer Audi test session at Brands Hatch, England. The 21-year-old American is now brimming with confidence prior to Sunday\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s double-header race meeting at the famed track situated some 25 miles southeast of London.
\nEdwards posted his best lap of 44.5s toward the end of the afternoon, after the circuit had dried out following some overnight rain. His best was narrowly eclipsed by local hero Tom Sisley (a graduate of the British Formula Ford Championship) in the waning moments, but Edwards remained content.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I feel good and I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m happy with the car,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Edwards, from Santa Maria, Calif., who won last year\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s EFDA Formula Opel Winter Series in the colors of the Valvoline Team USA Scholarship and is bidding to add to his burgeoning reputation by clinching the four-race Formula Palmer Audi Winter Series. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m pretty confident going into the weekend. I know all I really need to do is finish ahead of the other [top] two [contenders] to win the championship, but I still want to win.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Fellow Team USA Scholarship winners Andy Lally and Jeff Simmons logged the seventh and ninth fastest times, respectively, among the 22-car field.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I struggled quite a bit after lunch and just couldn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t quite get it together, but I just sat down and thought things through, made some changes to the setup, and found quite a bit of time,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d related Lally, 24, from Northport, N.Y., who improved to 44.8s on his final run. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I feel pretty good because I know there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s more time in me and we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re quite close to the front-running pace. One tenth of a second faster would have put me fourth. I know I can improve.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Simmons, 23, from Granby, Conn., endured another tough day, which included a late start due to an electrical glitch and then a spin at Surtees bend which resulted in some damage to the left-front corner of his Van Diemen chassis. (Incidentally, his incident during the second race at Snetterton last Sunday almost certainly was caused by a broken rear anti-roll bar.)<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I feel bad for my mechanics, having the fix my car all the time,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Simmons, who posted a best time of 45.1s. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t remember the last time I crashed on my own. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not that the car\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s difficult to drive. I just can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get the car the way I like it. Every change I make seems to have the opposite effect to what I expect. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s frustrating, but I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll sit down with Paul and Andy and try to figure it out for Sunday.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
All three drivers took a little time during the lunch break today to undertake a photo-shoot with their trio of Team USA Scholarship cars, which have attracted tremendous interest for their patriotic red, white and blue livery featuring support from Valvoline, CART, Tasman Motorsports, Audi, PacWest Racing, Mercedes-Benz USA, Road Racing Drivers Club, Klein Tools, Skip Barber Racing School, No Fear and Mitel Semiconductor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Nov 18, 1999 Fawkham, England — Fresh from scoring a pair of victories at Snetterton last Sunday, Paul Edwards was fastest throughout most of today\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Formula Palmer Audi test session at Brands Hatch, England. The…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1573,"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\/1572"}],"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=1572"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1572\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1574,"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1572\/revisions\/1574"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}