Falken Factory Driver Eager to Restart ALMS Season After Le Mans BreakIt has been nearly two months since Bryan Sellers last had the opportunity to race the No. 17 Team Falken Tire Porsche 911 GT3 RSR in the American Le Mans Series presented by Tequila Patrn (ALMS). The Braselton, Ga.-resident has tested the GT class car he shares with Wolf Henzler (Germany) but he won't get to turn a wheel in anger until the American Le Mans Northeast Grand Prix on July 6. After such a long break out of the car he has helped spur to two podium finishes in three races, restarting the season at the 1.474-mile, seven-turn Lime Rock Park road course is like dropping a nuclear bomb inside a soup bowl. The energy is high, the Lakeville, Conn. arena is small and the competition is intense. Sit back and watch the fireworks this Independence Day weekend.
Sellers opened the 2013 ALMS season with a third-place at the Mobil 1 Twelve Hours of Sebring in March co-driving with Henzler and Nick Tandy (United Kingdom) in the Team Falken Tire Porsche. In April, on the city streets of Southern California, Sellers qualified second in class and went on to lead the Grand Prix of Long Beach. At Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca in early May, the Sellers-Henzler duo raced to second-place - a failure in post-race technical inspection would pull championship points from then No. 17 but the drivers and team retain the podium finishing position in the record book. Then came the traditional "Le Mans Break" - a clearing of the ALMS schedule to allow teams to compete at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in France each June - which has kept the teams off the track in North America. Sellers is now eager to see if the momentum from he first three races can be reignited for a championship assault beginning anew at round four or if it will fizzle.
The intensity of the Lime Rock Park facility can quickly spark or drench title aspirations even with more than half the season remaining. The predominately right-hand turn circuit is narrow putting passing at a premium. The 34-car field, 11 of which are in the GT class like Sellers, fills the track promising that the driver will seldom see a clear lap. Elevation changes and fast corners, along with the venue's long front straightaway give the drivers little time to relax physically and no time to relax mentally. Like the atomic blast waiting to be dropped into the bowl, every turn of every lap over the course of the two-hour, 45-minute race has the potential to ignite a maelstrom.
Sellers has not been idle since May. In fact, his schedule has been very hectic with multiple tests in the Team Falken Tire Porsche and other racing events outside of the ALMS. The Falken Tire factory driver has spent six days testing tires for Falken and setup for the team in the No. 17 since the last race. He has also run in GRAND-AM's CTSCC series winning the most recent round in an epic battle down to the last turn in ever-changing conditions at Watkins Glen International last Saturday. The next day he ran the Park Place Motorsports Porsche 911 GT3 Cup entry into the top-three for much of his stint. The return of the ALMS will add to Sellers' packed driving schedule and it is a welcome addition for the ALMS' 2012 Most Popular Driver Award Winner.
Live coverage of qualifying of all classes can be found at the Series' web site and ESPN3 opening with the GTC class on Friday, July 5, 4:25 p.m. Eastern Time (ET). ESPN2 will broadcast the race live, Saturday, July 6 beginning at 3 p.m. Live flag-to-flag race streaming on ESPN3 begins at 2:45 p.m. Full international coverage as well as live in-car camera footage will be available real time at www.ALMS.com. Live timing and scoring of all sessions, including qualifying and the race, are also found on the Series' official web site.
Quotes
Bryan Sellers:
On Lime Rock: "Lime Rock is a very difficult race to return to after a long break. Everyone is itching to get back to battling for the race win and it is always a difficult one. Very intense. Everyone wants to restart the season with a win and everyone has worked hard over the break. When you put everyone on such a short track it makes for great racing and very tight fights up through the end of the race."
On preparing for Lime Rock:
"Preparing for Lime Rock is no easy task. It is very physical from all aspects. It is a race that I find you have to prepare yourself for mentally well in advance. You have to be ready to come out of the car exhausted. You have to be prepared to be mentally focused 100% for the entire race. Otherwise there is a price to be paid."
On the importance of resuming the season well: "As a team we have done six days of testing leading up to this race. Hopefully that means we are all in peak condition to get back to racing. This is the point in the season where you should be peaking as a program and I hope all the testing and the preparation will allow us to be right on our game."
On the last lap: "I practiced accelerating out of the corner the last two laps behind the pace car so I knew I could get a jump out of the last corner. The pass on the brakes was a little bit of blind faith that we would have enough grip and it worked out! After that I just worked at running the quickest lap I could without going over the edge. It is so difficult to be the first guy through those conditions, especially on the last lap. The track was still very wet and the grip was low. I'm pretty happy we didn't have to do more laps. I knew I had to take every opportunity. You never know if you'll get another chance and I wasn't about to come back second because I didn't risk it on the restart."
