If you want a tour, you go to a local. No one is more local to Road Atlanta than Bryan Sellers. The Braselton, Georgia-resident lives less than five-minutes from the host facility of the 17th Annual Petit Le Mans. Sellers, who won the GT - now GT Le Mans (GTLM) - class here last year, starts and ends his tour of the 2.54-mile, 12-corner track with Turn Three. Like last season, Team Falken Tire brings its No. 17 Porsche 911 RSR looking for its first race win of the season. Sellers will join teammates Wolf Henzler (Germany) and Marco Holzer (Germany) in search of a win in the 10-hour TUDOR United SportsCar Championship's inaugural season finale on Saturday, October 4.
Drive Through Road Atlanta's Turn-Three with Bryan Sellers: "My favorite turn at Road Atlanta to drive the Team Falken Tire Porsche 911 RSR through is Turn Three. It is a challenging and important corner to get correct. Like most of the corners that I really like, 'Three' at Road Atlanta is a 'make-it or break-it' turn. You get it right and you carry a lot of speed through the first half of the lap. If you get it wrong, you will be fighting to regain time the entire way around.
The approach to Turn Three is difficult because you are turning while applying the brakes. This makes it tricky to get the car balanced on the entry to the turn. It is a mid-speed corner with speeds of roughly 75 miles per hour at the apex. While that doesn't demand the courage that Turns One or Twelve do, you have to get the line just as spot-on as you do on the high-speed areas. Turn Three not only has a difficult brake zone but also a difficult apex. On the initial approach to the corner it is tough to see the apex but more importantly, there is a huge curb at the apex. That curbing is vital in getting the corner right. You must focus a lot of time and attention to how the car rides over the top of that curb. If you are too harsh while hitting the curb you will struggle to get to full power of the Porsche engine to the ground. Any loss of putting the power to the track hurts you on the approach to the 'Esses'. One the other hand, if you have the car too soft over the curb, you will bottom-out on the landing. You get that landing wrong and you'll also struggle with being able to transition the car from side-to-side later. It is a corner that is all about balance: braking late but not so late as to upset the entry, being able to use the curb but not too much. Turn Three is challenging and a telltale sign of your overall lap time. That is why it is my favorite corner at a track of favorite corners. Lap one or at the end of the tenth-hour, you have to get Turn Three correct."
The Petit Le Mans powered by Mazda can be seen live on FOX Sports 2 at 11:00 a.m. Eastern Time, October 4. The Motor Racing Network (MRN) will also carry the race live on its network of stations. The ten-hour race will have live timing and scoring available at IMSA.com. Video streaming of qualifying is available on the IMSA web site beginning at 4:20 p.m. ET on Friday, October 3.
The FOX Network will broadcast a two-hour highlights show of the race on Sunday, October 5. Check local listing for the airtime in your market.
