{"id":2085,"date":"2012-11-06T22:46:48","date_gmt":"2012-11-06T22:46:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/teamusa.is.mcmurry.com\/?p=2085"},"modified":"2012-11-06T22:48:47","modified_gmt":"2012-11-06T22:48:47","slug":"surviving-silverstone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/?p=2085","title":{"rendered":"Surviving Silverstone"},"content":{"rendered":"

London, England (November 6, 2012) – My last blog was titled \u201cwhirlwind\u201d because that\u2019s what I felt like I was living in when I first arrived at Brands Hatch.\u00a0Winning the Cooper Tires Prototype Lites Championship then flying to England to represent Team USA for two race weekends, I\u00a0felt like things just couldn\u2019t get any better than that.\u00a0But to my surprise, they did!!<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Celebrating the win!
Jeff Bloxham photo.<\/p><\/div>\n

I really did not have any grand expectations other than to do my best and to learn a lot.\u00a0I was faced with many obstacles and was way out of my comfort zone.\u00a0The most concerning obstacle was racing in the rain, and I was thrown into the wet conditions in the very first session.\u00a0I was shocked how comfortable I felt in the wet!\u00a0Before I left for England, everyone told me that I better pray for dry weather, but ironically I found myself praying for it to rain.<\/p>\n

The rain testing gave me so much confidence going into the heat races, which allowed me to capitalize on the two wins at Brands Hatch.\u00a0Things didn\u2019t go my way there for the Final which was very disappointing because I started on pole and I could taste the victory.\u00a0P2 got an advantage on the start and passed me going into Turn One (Paddock Hill Bend), and I was passed again going into Turn Two (Druid’s), which put me into P3.\u00a0I finally got my chance to take back P2 but was turned down on which sent my flying into the gravel of Paddock corner.\u00a0That sent me to the back of the field, and as I was beginning to make up positions, my engine let go and so did my hopes for winning the Formula Ford Festival.<\/p>\n

Going into Silverstone, I knew that I had to keep my head up and focus on making the final and, most importantly, surviving it!\u00a0This race was going to be a whole different story.\u00a0There were\u00a0three times the amount of competitors (120) and these competitors were all highly experienced.\u00a0There were previous multi-winners as well as professional drivers in the mix.\u00a0My goal was to get to the final.<\/p>\n

Silverstone is a completely different track than Brands Hatch.\u00a0It was easier to learn with much more high-speed running and allowed for close competition.\u00a0Testing went well again for me.\u00a0I was consistently in the top\u00a0five in all of my testing sessions.\u00a0I qualified fifth in my group, and came in fourth in my first heat.\u00a0I forgot to mention that I was again in the same group as Ivor McCullough, a two-time Formula Ford Festival winner, Luke Cooper, Oliver White and a vast amount of other talent.\u00a0To be in the Semi Finals was a relief and one step closer to my goal.<\/p>\n

The day of the Semi Finals and Grand Final began with a monsoon!!\u00a0They actually had bulldozers pushing the standing water off the track.\u00a0The schedule was postponed for about\u00a0two hours in hopes that the weather would clear.\u00a0\u00a0It eventually did, and racing resumed.\u00a0I was in the second Semi Final, which was a nice change because I was previously always in the first group.\u00a0This allowed me to watch a little of the first Semi Final to get an idea of what to expect. The track conditions were wet and extremely slick.\u00a0I started 10th and finished a solid fourth place, which lined me up for the final in P7.<\/p>\n

My goal was almost achieved; all I needed to do was survive the mayhem of the Final!\u00a0I lined up in P7 and got the best standing start out of the entire two weeks that I\u2019ve been here. I was sixth after the first corner.\u00a0I pushed hard to get to the front.\u00a0About halfway into the race I was already in the third position.\u00a0\u00a0As I began to reel in P1 and P2, I started to think that winning this prestigious race was a possibility.\u00a0When Peter Dempsey (P1) and Joey Foster (P2) got tangled in their battle, I was able to slip by and take P1.\u00a0At that moment, I saw a clear track with no water spray going into my visor and I felt like this victory was meant to be. Ivor McCullough saw it differently.\u00a0He was the same guy that I made a last-minute pass on for the win in the Semi Final at Brands Hatch.\u00a0He was not going to let me get away with it again so he dive-bombed me going into the last sector of the track, coming to see the white flag.<\/p>\n

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Wheel-to-wheel with Ivor McCullough.
Jeff Bloxham photo.<\/p><\/div>\n

I was right on his tail going onto the front straightaway and I was able to get by him in Turn\u00a0Three (Beckett’s) and soon after that I saw the checkered flag.\u00a0However, it wasn\u2019t a very enthusiastic wave like we have in America, so I wasn\u2019t quite sure if the race was over.\u00a0I took Turn One (Copse Corner) at normal race pace and it wasn\u2019t until I saw the corner marshalls clapping with their hands in the air that I knew that this was for real. I had won the Walter Hayes Trophy Grand Final!!<\/p>\n

It still hasn\u2019t really sunk in yet, but now that my Facebook and Twitter have blown up with congrats, it\u2019s starting to become more of a reality. There are so many people to thank for giving me this unique opportunity. I feel so blessed to be able to be a part of the elite\u00a0 list of drivers that have come through the Team USA scholarship and to have my name engraved on the Walter Hayes Trophy.\u00a0This has been an experience of a life time and one that I will never forget.<\/p>\n

Tristan<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

London, England (November 6, 2012) – My last blog was titled \u201cwhirlwind\u201d because that\u2019s what I felt like I was living in when I first arrived at Brands Hatch.\u00a0Winning the Cooper Tires Prototype Lites Championship…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2089,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7,5,25],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2085"}],"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=2085"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2085\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2092,"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2085\/revisions\/2092"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2089"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}