Young Sports Car Ace to Launches New Year with Grand-Am Rolex 24 & CTSCC Events
It will be "off to the races" for Bryan Sellers in 2012. Beginning with dual events at Daytona International Speedway (DIS), the Braselton, Ga.-resident promises to have one of his busiest seasons to date. Friday, January 27 Sellers will launch into the new year with the two-hour, 30-minute Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge (CTSCC) driving the No. 46 BCKSTGR/Fall-Line BMW M3 Coupe in the GS class of the BMW Performance 200. The following day, he'll run his first endurance race of 2012 taking the No. 17 FOAMETIX/Burtin Racing with Goldcrest Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 Cup into battle in the 50th Anniversary of the Rolex 24 At Daytona. Competition in the Rolex 24 promises to be brutal with top drivers from all over the world making-up the 46-car GT class field - overall, 60 cars form the grid of the twice-around-the-clock event. Sellers joins past Rolex 24-winner Jack Baldwin (Marietta, Ga.), team owner Claudio Burtin (Marietta, Ga.), Sebastian Asch (Germany) and Martin Ragginger (Stuttgart, Germany) in the No. 17 - one of 24 Porsches entered. The quintet had impressive results in pre-season testing at DIS. In the January 6-8 "Roar Before the Rolex 24", the FOAMETIX/Burtin Porsche set the second quickest time in two sessions. Their best lap - a one minute, 49.629 second lap of the 3.56-mile, 12-turn speedway road course - came in the third of eight sessions. Expectations are high for the race as car preparation was put at a premium over speed in the test. Beginning with Daytona, Sellers will compete in the majority of the CTSCC events with Fall-Line in attempt to capture the team and co-driver Mark Boden (Winnetka, Ill.) championships. However, prior motorsports commitments will force him to miss at least one event minimizing his personal chances for a title. At the "Roar Before the Rolex 24", Sellers was among the quickest for the three-day test setting the car's fastest time (1:57.476) in the fourth session. The BMW Performance 200 will take the green flag at 1:30 p.m. (ET) on Friday. 2011 was a landmark year for Sellers. He finished second in the Rolex 24 At Daytona GT class driving for Paul Miller Racing and won two American Le Mans Series presented by Tequila Patrón (ALMS) GT class races in the Team Falken Tire Porsche 911 GT3 RSR (Mid-Ohio and Baltimore). In addition, he ran a number of races for Kinetic Motorsports in CTSCC driving a BMW M3. All told, Sellers was the highest finishing American, third, in the prestigious world ranking of drivers in the Porsche Cup. Sellers will open his third championship of 2012 on March 17 at the 60th Annual Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring driving for Team Falken Tire in the ALMS. SPEED will broadcast the 50th Rolex 24 live. Coverage begins with an hour-long pre-race show at 2:30 p.m. (ET) on Saturday, January 28. SPEED will continue live from the green flag at 3:30 p.m. through the first seven-and-a-half hours (3:30-11 p.m.). The live coverage will resume at 9 a.m., Sunday, Jan. 29 until 4 p.m. post-race. The nighttime hours will be webcast on SPEED.com. SPEED will air the BMW Performance 200 on Saturday, February 4 at 12:00 p.m. (ET).Quotes
Bryan Sellers:
About the Rolex 24 weekend:"I love starting the year at Daytona! There is always a great amount of competition in both the Rolex 24 and the Challenge races and it really causes you to start the year at a high level. This weekend makes sure you have left no stone unturned in your preparation. It will be a very busy year and I hope to start it off right!
Winning at Daytona in any year would be special in its own right. However, this year, everyone has pulled-out the stops for the 50th Anniversary so winning it on such an occasion would be indescribable!"About what pre-season testing can reveal:"The test is a great chance to evaluate where you are as a program. It is always very difficult to estimate your overall performance against the competition during testing so you have to focus more on making sure you are prepared. Everybody will improve from the test and I expect it to be an extremely challenging weekend in both races." About the benefits of driving in both the Rolex 24 and the BMW Performance 200: "Fortunately, with running two cars you get double the track time during practice. With the weekend being so abbreviated and having so many drivers, it does help to drive in both races. Not only does it help me as a driver, it helps the teams as I have double the information I can draw from."About past Daytona successes: "Daytona has been very good to me in the past and I hope it continues to be. I think that Daytona is a place you learn to adapt to; it doesn't really fit any style because it is such a different track. It really demands a lot of a driver over the course of the weekend. I love racing this event!"
