Bryan Sellers Carries ALMS Momentum Home to Mid-Ohio

BRYAN SELLERS CARRIES ALMS MOMENTUM HOME TO MID-OHIO

Ohio-Native Looking Forward to Homecoming on Technical Race Course

LEXINGTON, OH, August 1, 2011 – Everyone dreams of carrying the glory of success back to their hometown. Saturday, August 6, Bryan Sellers will have the opportunity to not only celebrate his best start to a sportscar racing season but also to add to it with his first career victory in the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Challenge. The Centerville, OH-native brings to Lexington’s Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course (Mid-Ohio) the success of three consecutive, top-five finishes in the American Le Mans Series presented by Tequila Patrón (ALMS) entering Round Five of the nine-race GT-class championship. The track is a favorite of Sellers, who now lives in Braselton, GA, not only because of its proximity to his birthplace but also because it is technically challenging to the drivers. As he has done all season, the former open wheel racing champion will share the No.17 Team Falken Tire Porsche 911 GT3 RSR with Germany’s Wolf Henzler.

Sellers grew-up just over two hours from Mid-Ohio. When he was young, the Team Falken Tire factory driver would visit the 2.258-mile, 13-turn circuit first to watch his heroes in open wheel Indy cars and sports cars then to face its challenges personally. Once his own career was well established in karting, then into formula, single-seaters, Sellers found great success here. He used the circuit to launch championships in the Skip Barber Midwest Region (’99), Formula Ford Zetec (‘02) and USF2000 (’02). These titles joined karting championships in the World Karting Assoc. Nationals (’98) and multiple regional karting series (’94-’97).

The track, while quick, is known more for its technical nature than the brut speed highlighted at the most recent ALMS race at Mosport International Raceway in Canada. Mid-Ohio’s layout demands extreme concentration at all times. A lapse in attention by just an inch can lose tenths of a second in successive corners. At the end of a lap, all combined, a driver can face a substantial time penalty just for entering a single corner slightly off the optimal line. It is on technical courses like this that Sellers has truly shined. While an impressive race tactician, Sellers’ greatest gift comes from precision driving and maximizing a car’s setup with team engineers. As such, a track like Mid-Ohio is a perfect “playground” for the local, young gun.

With the combination of track, hometown hero and momentum converging this weekend, hopes are high that Mid-Ohio will be the site of Sellers’ highest, career ALMS finish – currently a fourth-place at the Long Beach (CA) Grand Prix in April. In 2010, Sellers and Henzler took the Falken entry to eighth at Mid-Ohio. However, the team led by Derrick Walker (Indianapolis) has reason for higher expectations for the two-hour, 45-minute event. Mid-Ohio was one of three race courses Falken Tire tested on during the nearly three-month-long “Le Mans Break”. Sellers, who has become sought-after for his development prowess, spent two days testing at Mid-Ohio – as well as Road America and in Japan. The test gained valuable information for Falken Tire engineers who have been able to fine-tune a tire for the weekend. This testing information will also benefit future tracks as well.

Quotes

Bryan Sellers:

About the pressure of racing at his “home” track: “There is no added pressure to perform but there is always added desire. When you have momentum in your favor it really helps to push you in the right direction mentally, and helps you continue to strive for good results. The best thing about racing at Mid-Ohio is it really hasn’t changed. It is the same general place that I have always known. That’s one of the things that makes it really special.”

About the technical challenge of Mid-Ohio: “Mid-Ohio is very technically difficult. It has very blind corners which makes it difficult to commit in some places. The grip levels in some of the corners vary drastically from being on line and slightly off line. Mid-Ohio is a place where you have to put it all together to get it right. As a driver, the best tracks are the ones that challenge you and Mid-Ohio offers that.”

About the value of testing at Mid-Ohio: “It is difficult to place a premium on how valuable the information we got in testing the Falken tire here will be. We will have a new tire that was designed off of our Mid-Ohio testing so we will find out. I hope that the testing allows us to roll off the truck with a good package. Mid-Ohio is not generally a Porsche track, nor was it good for Team Falken Tire last year. However, neither were Lime Rock or Mosport but both of those turned out okay for us so I have high hopes and expectations.”

The Mid-Ohio Sports Car Challenge and qualifying can be seen live on www.ESPN3.com. The qualifying show will stream live starting at 2:20 pm (EDT), Friday, August 5. Live, flag-to-flag coverage of Saturday’s race will air August 6 on ESPN3.com beginning at 3:15 pm. ESPN2 will broadcast a two-hour highlight show on Sunday, August 7 at 10:00 pm. Live timing and scoring of each session can be found at www.AmericanLeMans.com.

For more on Bryan Sellers, please visit him on the web at www.BryanSellersRacing.com. Follow Bryan on Twitter (www.Twitter.com/BryanSellers) and Facebook.

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