Bryan Sellers Unhurt After Promising Road America ALMS Race Ends in Accident
Falken Works Driver Runs 3rd Before Race Ends Against Wall
ELKHART LAKE, Wisc., August 19, 2012 – Bryan Sellers entered Saturday’s Road America Road Race Showcase looking to find the rhythm of the Elkhart Lake, Wisc.-track. He found it but then the music turned quickly sour. The Braselton, Ga.-resident was deep into his second stint running as high as third in the No. 17 Team Falken Tire Porsche 911 GT3 RSR when the car suffered a left-rear tire failure as a result of increasing oversteer. The failure launched the car he shares with co-driver Wolf Henzler (Germany) into the outside wall at the famous “Kink” section of the 4.048-mile racetrack. Sellers would disappointedly have to accept a 12th-place finish in the August 18 round seven of the American Le Mans Series presented by Tequila Patrón (ALMS). Fortunately, the driver who is celebrating his birthday on August 19, was uninjured in the one-car accident.
Team Falken Tire gained momentum over the weekend just as it has at most of the ALMS races this season. Entering Saturday’s four-hour endurance event, the operation knew it did not have the overall speed to compete for the race victory. Therefore, as they have done the previous two races – which yielded back-to-back fourth-place finishes – they focused on a unique strategy to put them in contention. The strategy worked with the former open-wheel racing champion doing a double stint in the car between the second and final hour of the race. He ran the car up from ninth-place to third in GT class and was running fifth when the failure occurred.
Sellers and Team Falken Tire will move to the city street course of downtown Baltimore to attempt to right their ship. The September 1 race was the site of Sellers’ second ALMS career victory last year. Of his two ALMS victories, it was his first to be behind the wheel at the checkered flag.
A full event report and the race broadcast can be found at www.ALMS.com.
Quotes
Bryan Sellers:
On the race: “One of the things we’ve found over the last couple of races is that if we can run our race the best we can execute it then we can put ourselves in a position in the end for a top-five finish. We don’t have enough speed right now to fight for a win, but if we do our job well and we do everything we do the best we can possibly do it, then we get a decent result. The Falken Porsche has been really strong the last couple of races which means we are moving in the right direction. Without a little bit of bad luck today we might have had a decent finish.”
On the accident: “We had a left-rear tire failure that resulted in a huge wreck. It’s one of those situations where I feel like we did all the right protocol to prevent it from happening. I felt an issue. I slowed down. I called into the team. They checked the telemetry and everything looked OK. I still didn’t feel right so I slowed down to a speed that I thought that if we did get a slow leak it’s now a savable speed, something I can deal with. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a slow leak. It wasn’t a leak at all. Ultimately it ended with a lot of crash damage and a lot of work for the guys ahead. The hardest part of the day for me is not that I am sore tomorrow morning, it’s that there is now a whole other list of things for the guys to do. Instead of progressing we are now fixing things. That’s what we have our backs up against and we’ll deal with it. The Falken guys are good and they’ll turn it around so I have no doubt.”
On the strategy: “It was working out really well. We had originally talked about not doing doubles and singling the stints. When it came time for the second stint I felt really good. It made sense for me to stay in and to save Wolf for the end because I was still relatively fresh. I offered to stay in for a double all in the hopes that you are giving him a good fresh run to the end. It was working. We were where we needed to be to give Wolf a chase. We just didn’t get that far.”
For more on Bryan Sellers, please visit him on the web at "> www.BryanSellersRacing.com . Follow Bryan on Twitter ("> www.Twitter.com/BryanSellers ) and LIKE him on Facebook at: www.facebook.com/BryanSellersRacing . Tune-in to Bryan’s YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/BryanSellersRacing.
Visit www.FalkenTire.com for more on Team Falken Tire. Learn more about the American Le Mans Series at www.ALMS.com.
Go R/C racing with Bryan at www.HPIRACING.com.
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