{"id":5602,"date":"2020-10-31T18:13:08","date_gmt":"2020-10-31T18:13:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/?p=5602"},"modified":"2020-10-31T18:13:08","modified_gmt":"2020-10-31T18:13:08","slug":"strong-heat-race-finishes-for-aron-and-lee-at-silverstone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/?p=5602","title":{"rendered":"Strong Heat Race Finishes for Aron and Lee at Silverstone"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Aron leaves the start line for Heat 3 (Jakob Ebrey photos).<\/p><\/div>\n

SILVERSTONE, England<\/strong> \u2013 Dismal conditions today at Silverstone failed to deter Team USA Scholarship drivers Bryce Aron and Jackson Lee, who both splashed to respectable fourth-place finishes in their respective Heat races for the 20th Walter Hayes Trophy.<\/p>\n

The pair are expected to start on the fourth row for their Semi Final races tomorrow.<\/p>\n

A remarkable field of 103 cars \u2013 representing no fewer than 18 different marques dating back through the 53-year history of Formula Ford \u2013 was split into four groups for today\u2019s initial round of competition on a treacherously wet 1.6404-mile track.<\/p>\n

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Lee was fourth fastest in qualifying for his Heat race.<\/p><\/div>\n

Aron, 17, from Winnetka, Ill., was disappointed to qualify only sixth for the third Heat, stymied by slower traffic in the awful conditions, while Lee, 18, from Avon, Ind., laid down the fourth fastest lap for Heat Four, a couple of positions ahead of fellow American teenager Max Esterson in an identical Low Dempsey Racing Ray.<\/p>\n

Conditions steadily worsened throughout the morning, with strong winds and heavy rain causing a lengthy delay to the proceedings. There was an additional interruption during the opening Heat race when one of the pre-event favorites, three-time Walter Hayes Trophy winner Joey Foster (Firman) crashed at Brooklands. A restarted and shortened race was won by last year\u2019s champion Jordan Dempsey (KMR Spectrum). Teammate Neil Maclennan, winner of this year\u2019s Avon Tires National Championship, secured a narrow win over yet another teammate, two-time WHT champion Michael Moyers, in Heat Two.<\/p>\n

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Aron finished fourth in his Heat race.<\/p><\/div>\n

An excellent first lap by Aron saw him jump from sixth to fourth in Heat Three, and while he subsequently lost one position to Jamie Sharp (Medina), he soon gained it back again \u2013 at the expense of Low Dempsey Racing teammate and 2019 Formula Ford Festival winner Jonathan Browne. Veteran Oliver White (Medina) emerged a narrow winner over Josh Fisher (Van Diemen), Sharp, Aron, David MacArthur (Medina) and Browne. The top six were blanketed by just over two seconds after eight laps of wheel-to-wheel racing on a treacherous track.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter what felt like an eternity of waiting during a rain delay, the heat races finally came to life,\u201d said Aaron. \u201cThe track was completely soaked but the sun came out which made for some bad visibility \u2013 similar in fact to the Brands Hatch Semi-Final one week ago. In the end I finished a solid fourth after battling with very talented drivers in a very hard heat. I can\u2019t thank everyone at Low Dempsey enough for all their help and giving me some great equipment. I am very excited for tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Lee enjoyed a great battle with veteran Robert Hall.<\/p><\/div>\n

Heat Four was a little less hectic, with another English veteran, Chris Middlehurst (Van Diemen) emerging victorious. Luke Cooper (Swift) and Michael Macpherson (Spectrum) squabbled over second, while Lee drove a measured race in fourth to hold off a determined challenge from Robert Hall\u2019s Swift. Esterson followed in sixth, another 2.5 seconds back.<\/p>\n

\u201cSurvive and advance, that\u2019s all today was about,\u201d said Lee. \u201cAnd we were able to do just that. And show some strong pace as well. My standing starts in the wet still need a little work. I\u2019ve gone from too much RPMs to not enough. I was able to make up the few spots I lost to secure fourth place. Tomorrow I plan to find a middle ground and get a good start.\u201d<\/p>\n

The popular knock-out format will continue tomorrow morning with a pair of 12-lap Semi Finals starting at 11:10 a.m. (3:10 a.m. EST). The 15-lap Grand Final is set for 3:10 p.m. Live timing can be found at https:\/\/www.tsl-timing.com\/event\/204456<\/a> with some impromptu filming available on the Walter Hayes Trophy Group Facebook page<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SILVERSTONE, England \u2013 Dismal conditions today at Silverstone failed to deter Team USA Scholarship drivers Bryce Aron and Jackson Lee, who both splashed to respectable fourth-place finishes in their respective Heat races for the 20th…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":5605,"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\/5602"}],"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=5602"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5602\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5612,"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5602\/revisions\/5612"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5602"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5602"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/teamusascholarship.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}