Bryan Sellers Batting 1.000 in ALMS Baltimore Show

Falken Tire Works Driver Takes Second Consecutive GP of Baltimore GT Win

BALTIMORE, September 2, 2012 – If motorsports used baseball terminology, Bryan Sellers would be batting 1.000 on the streets of Baltimore. With the shadow of Camden Yards falling across the circuit hosting the Baltimore Sports Car Challenge presented by SRT, Sellers added this year’s GT class victory to his win in the two-hour event’s inaugural run of 2011. The Braselton, Ga.-resident marked a third career American Le Mans Series presented by Tequila Patrón (ALMS) victory onto his resume in the process. Like the September 1 title, the other wins have come co-driving the No. 17 Team Falken Tire Porsche 911 GT3 RSR with Wolf Henzler (Germany).

The first Baltimore victory, one year ago on the same circuit the former open-wheel racing champion conquered Saturday, came in similar fashion to the race’s second edition win. Henzler started the car just as he had in 2011. The German factory driver worked the car from seventh on the grid to lead before the car’s first and only pit stop. With one-hour, 11-minutes remaining in the eighth of 10 ALMS races scheduled this year, Sellers took the wheel of the Porsche. Just as it had a year-ago, pit stop rotation dropped the No. 17 back to eighth. Once behind the wheel, Sellers began to move the car back towards the front on the 2.02-mile, 12-turn race circuit laid out on the streets flanked by Baltimore’s beautiful Inner Harbor and Camden Yards.

His “run for the pennant” put Sellers back at the plate against sports car racing’s strongest arms. With 45-minutes remaining, the No. 4 Corvette of Oliver Gavin began to show bright in the Falken car’s rearview mirror. Sellers answered, just as he had a year ago, by pulling a gap with a master’s skill of working traffic. Like a batter who had the upper hand in the count, it all turned suddenly. With 43 minutes to go, race officials called a caution period erasing the margin Sellers had built. 20 minutes later the green flag resumed competition with Gavin waiting to pounce. If anyone stumbled, the others in the top-five of the world’s most competitive GT class were racing nose-to-tail to take the advantage.

Sellers stood his ground in the proverbial batter’s box waiting for the best his competitors could throw at him. He had a stunning restart and began pulling away from the Corvette yet again. However, it was not yet to be his grand slam. With only 15 minutes to go, another yellow flag cut the 1.6-second gap he had built to Gavin back to zero. With only five minutes before the checkered flag, Sellers readied for the final pitch as the green flew one last time. Just as he had done 12 months earlier, Sellers knocked the ball out of the park in a way that would have made Eddie Murray – the great Baltimore Orioles Hall of Famer – proud. Sellers won the GT race by 2.2 seconds finishing fourth overall in the 30-car field.

The ALMS now travels to Danville Vir. for the Series’ inaugural event at Virginia International Raceway (VIR). The four-hour American Le Mans Series presented by Tequila Patrón VIR 240 will be held on Sept. 15 and is the penultimate race of the 2012 season. Learn more at www.ALMS.com.

Quotes

Bryan Sellers:

On his third ALMS race victory: “It was perfect. Again, we didn’t have the fastest car of the race but we had the car that we needed to win. That was the car that could run the same laps from the beginning to the end. Actually, the Falken Tire Porsche got better at the end when we really needed it to. * It’s such a great feeling and such a huge relief! * After such a great year last year, and two wins, you want nothing more than to get another one. I am glad we could do it here again. It’s just so special.”

On the multiple, late-race restarts: “Oliver Gavin is not someone you want behind you. That’s for sure. He’s won so many races you’ve got to take every single advantage you have. It just so happened that my advantage was on the restarts. I was able to get after it really aggressively and the Falken Porsche was there pretty quickly after the restarts and I was able to [build a] gap. Had it gone green the whole way through, there’s no telling what the result would have been but it didn’t. To stay in the lead we had to be good on the restarts and we were able to do that. I pushed as hard as I possibly could at the end so I didn’t have to battle. The last thing you want to do is go to the last lap with him right behind you. I went in with the mindset that if it went green again it was win or smack the wall trying.”

On the Falken Tire: “Falken Tire did such a great job again with this tire here this weekend. It is not always about how fast you can go it’s about how fast you can stay. Falken hit everything right. It was just a good day. To win in the ALMS it has to be a perfect day from everyone’s perspective, not just the drivers’. Everyone did their job!”

On Team Falken Tire’s effort to win the race: “It would have been impossible for us to come from seventh-place to fight through all of those cars but Wolf did it somehow. He leads the race and hands it over to me. It wasn’t easy, for sure, but when you get the car like that you have to do everything you can to stay up there. I couldn’t let him down. I couldn’t let the team down. The Falken guys worked so hard after Road America to fix the car. It’s great for them. I am more happy for them and the job they did than I ever could be for myself.”

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. 090212