Oct 7, 1997
\nSilverstone, England \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Preparations for Nations Cup VIII at Donington Park, England on October 18\/19 continued today as Valvoline Team USA Scholarship winners Buddy Rice and Matt Sielsky completed another day of testing. The young Americans traveled this time to the Silverstone National circuit and gained valuable experience in both wet and dry conditions.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The cars are fun to drive in the wet,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said 19-year-old Sielsky. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We had a real good day. Once again there were lots of red flags, mainly caused by three young Japanese drivers who are in [smaller] Vauxhall Junior cars and seem to be following us from track to track. And they keep on falling off the road! Aside from that, we had a good day. It was useful to get some time in the cars in the wet.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
When the circuit dried out after lunch, Sielsky emerged with a best lap in 57.71 seconds, just over two-tenths slower than highly rated Brazilian team member Wagner Ebrahim, who has won races this year and is expected to be one of Team USA\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s main rivals in the Nations Cup. Rice, meanwhile, was suffering from a head cold but still posted respectable times in the low-58-second bracket.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The boys did well,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said team manager John Village. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I was well pleased. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not much to choose between the two of them. They make a good team. Buddy was a bit quicker the first couple of times we tested but he wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t his usual bubbly self today. Matt looked good, and while he was a little bit slower than Ebrahim, I think that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s slightly misleading because Ebrahim ran new tires and Matt didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been fighting a cold for a couple of days now,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d said Rice. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I thought I was getting a bit better today \u00e2\u20ac\u201c until I put my helmet on. We still got a lot out of the test. I think we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll be in good shape when we go back to Donington next week.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
The Team USA\/John Village Automotive team now has completed four days of testing. Both drivers are slated to drive two more days next week at Donington prior to the self-styled \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Olympics of Motor Racing\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in which they will compete \u00e2\u20ac\u201c in virtually identical cars \u00e2\u20ac\u201c against two-driver teams representing at least 12 other nations. In 1996, Team USA gained the Silver Medal, placing second behind Germany, through the efforts of Jerry Nadeau and Tony Renna.<\/p>\n
Photo: Matt Sielsky (left) and Buddy Rice <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Oct 7, 1997 Silverstone, England \u00e2\u20ac\u201c Preparations for Nations Cup VIII at Donington Park, England on October 18\/19 continued today as Valvoline Team USA Scholarship winners Buddy Rice and Matt Sielsky completed another day of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1620,"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\/1619"}],"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=1619"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1619\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1621,"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1619\/revisions\/1621"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1620"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}