{"id":2435,"date":"2013-11-01T22:15:29","date_gmt":"2013-11-01T22:15:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/?p=2435"},"modified":"2013-11-01T22:15:29","modified_gmt":"2013-11-01T22:15:29","slug":"team-usa-drivers-bickers-eidson-chase-more-walter-hayes-trophy-glory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/?p=2435","title":{"rendered":"Team USA Drivers Bickers, Eidson Chase More Walter Hayes Trophy Glory"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

Jake and Joey side by side into Druid’s (photo courtesy of Jeff Bloxham)<\/p><\/div>\n

Silverstone, England (November 1, 2013) \u2013 The next phase of this year\u2019s Team USA Scholarship will unfold this weekend at Silverstone, the home of the British Formula 1 Grand Prix, which will host the annual Walter Hayes Trophy Formula Ford extravaganza. The popular end-of-season event, held in memory of the founding father of Formula Ford, has attracted well over 100 entries, including talented young Americans Joey Bickers and Jake Eidson who will be among at least 20 contenders considered as potential winners.<\/p>\n

The pair have some big shoes to fill. Conor Daly (2008), Connor De Phillippi (2009) and Tristan Nunez (2012) have all claimed victory for Team USA in the Walter Hayes Trophy within the past five years.<\/p>\n

Bickers and Eidson have had a busy week since the Formula Ford Festival at Brands Hatch. On Monday they enjoyed a guided tour of RML Group, which among many other projects has dominated the FIA World Touring Car Championship in recent years with their in-house developed Chevrolet Cruzes and ran the revolutionary Nissan DeltaWing prototype in the 2012 Le Mans 24 Hours race. Tuesday saw the two Team USA drivers spend an intense afternoon at Base Performance Simulators, followed by an interview with Radio Le Mans host John Hindhaugh for his popular Midweek Motorsport show. The past two days have been spent at the wheel of Cliff Dempsey Racing\u2019s pair of Ray FF1600 cars, gaining more experience of the 1.64-mile Silverstone National Circuit in preparation for this weekend.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s definitely different to Brands Hatch,\u201d said Eidson, 18, from Littleton, Colo. \u201cSilverstone doesn\u2019t have any elevation change but I think this track will be a lot more fun for passing because you have some longer straightaways and you get quite a big draft so I\u2019m looking forward to having some good battles with other cars. Also, it\u2019s a very historical track so to be able to race here is absolutely amazing. I\u2019m really looking forward to the weekend.\u201d<\/p>\n

Eidson hopes to build upon his strong performance in Kent, where he won his Heat race, posted fastest lap in his Semi Final and finished a fine fifth in the Grand Final after being shuffled outside the top 10 at the start. Teammate Bickers, 21, from Moorpark, Calif., is upbeat after finishing second in his Heat race at Brands Hatch.<\/p>\n

\u201cTesting has been mostly wet, so I\u2019ve got some more experience in the wet which I think will help because rain\u00a0 is predicted for Saturday, but Sunday should be dry,\u201d said Bickers. \u201cWe tested here a couple of weeks ago in the dry and I know the pace is going to be there, so we\u2019re looking forward to tomorrow. There\u2019s going to be a lot of competition \u2013 everybody from the Festival is going to be here plus a whole lot more, so it\u2019s not going to be easy but me and Jake are going to do our best.\u201d<\/p>\n

Full results from the weekend, including live timing and scoring, will be available at www.mstworld.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Silverstone, England (November 1, 2013) \u2013 The next phase of this year\u2019s Team USA Scholarship will unfold this weekend at Silverstone, the home of the British Formula 1 Grand Prix, which will host the annual…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2432,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5,6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2435"}],"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=2435"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2435\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2437,"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2435\/revisions\/2437"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}