OCTOBER 23, 2015 - STEPHENS FINISHES SECOND, DICKERSON FOURTH IN FORMULA FORD FESTIVAL HEAT RACES

WEST KINGSDOWN, England – Michai Stephens and Dakota Dickerson produced impressive performances in tricky conditions during today’s Heat races for the 44th Formula Ford Festival to qualify comfortably for the next round of competition tomorrow (Sunday) morning.
Both Team USA Scholarship drivers qualified fifth for their respective Heat races in dry conditions. Stephens lined up behind no fewer than three former Festival winners but lost no time in moving his way forward after rain had begun falling as the cars lined up on the pre-grid. A fine start saw him into fourth at the first corner. Stephens then made an impressive pass on 2013 Festival champion Niall Murray, braking deep on the inside line into Paddock Hill Bend on Lap Two to move up to third, where he remained until Lap 11 when he took advantage of a mistake by Luke Williams at Paddock Hill Bend to grasp second.
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OCTOBER 10, 2015 - DICKERSON, STEPHENS EARN 25TH ANNIVERSARY TEAM USA SCHOLARSHIPS

RANCHO SANTA MARGARITA, Calif. – Talented young Americans Dakota Dickerson, from San Diego, and Michai Stephens, from Evanston, Ill., were today named as winners of 2015 Team USA Scholarships. Following in the footsteps of such accomplished alumni as Jimmy Vasser, Bryan Herta, Buddy Rice, Andy Lally, Joey Hand, A.J. Allmendinger, Josef Newgarden and many others, the pair will travel to England this month to further their fledgling racing careers. Dickerson and Stephens earned their selection following a shootout last month aboard Allen Berg Racing Schools FR1600 cars running on Cooper tires at Auto Club Speedway in Southern California. The adjudicating panel included Rice, who, after claiming a Team USA Scholarship in 1997, went on to win the 2004 Indianapolis 500 and 2009 Rolex 24 At Daytona, plus two-time sports car champion Alex Gurney and accomplished race engineers Geoff Fickling, Kent Stacy and Gerald Tyler.
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SEPTEMBER 30, 2015 DAKOTA DOMINATES AT VIR, COMES HOME WITH 2 WINS, 3RD, 4TH, TWO POLES, AND TWO FASTEST LAPS. MOVES INTO 2ND IN THE DRIVERS CHAMPIONSHIP.

Round 11 & 12 of the Skip Barber Formula 2000 Summer Series traveled to the East Coast to the iconic VIR motorsports complex. Dakota entered this round of the series third in the drivers championship with only two more rounds in the series. In an effort to gain ground Dakota opted to double up on races which is allowed two times a season to replace results from prior races. This would bring on added pressure because the declaration is done prior to race day and if the results are worse, you can’t switch between them after the fact. In preparation for VIR Dakota invested over thirty hours of simulation using iRacing and flew out to Race Craft1. The result was a dominating performance which put Dakota back into 2nd in the drivers championship.

SEPTEMBER 5 , 2015 - SIX FINALISTS IMPRESS DURING SHOOTOUT AT AUTO CLUB SPEEDWAY

Rancho Santa Margarita, Calif. – A half-dozen talented young American race car drivers yesterday completed an intense two-day assessment at Auto Club Speedway in Fontana, Calif., comprising a variety of activities both on and off the race track. Two of the six will be selected to travel to England and represent the Team USA Scholarship, which is celebrating its 25th anniversary in 2015, in the traditional Formula Ford Festival at Brands Hatch and the Walter Hayes Trophy Formula Ford event at Silverstone in late October/early November.
The six finalists were chosen from a group of 12 candidates who attended an interview process during the recent IMSA Road Racing Showcase event at Road America (from l. to r.):

  • Michai Stephens, 23, Evanston, Ill., F1600 Championship Series
  • Tommy McCarthy, 16, Fremont, Calif., SCCA Spec Miata/USAC midgets
  • Austin McCusker, 17, Glen Head, NY, F2000 Championship Series
  • Timo Reger, 18, Houston, Texas, Skip Barber Racing Series
  • Dakota Dickerson, 18, San Diego, Calif., Skip Barber Racing Series/Spec Miata
  • Ben Auriemma, 17, Manhasset, N.Y., F1600 Championship Series

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AUGUST 25, 2015 - SKIP BARBER SUMMER SERIES AT MAZDA RACEWAY LAGUNA SECA

Dakota stands on the podium for the 6th time this season. Day 1 of the Summer Series at Laguna Seca started with an uphill battle with Dakota making the most of his equipment but only managing to qualify in P5. The race was hard fought with the top 7 competitors in the driver championship grouped into one session. By the end of the race Dakota had managed to move up into P3 and set the 4th fastest lap of the race. This resulted in Dakota's 6 podiums out of 9 races this season. For the race on day 2 the grid position was set via your fastest lap from race 1. This meant that Dakota slotted into P4 for his second race on Sunday. By lap 6 Dakota had moved his way up to P3 and by lap 10 he was all the way up into P2 and closing quickly on the race leader. On lap 12 Dakota had a mechanical failure as the CV bolts in the rear of his car failed going up the hill after turn 5. Dakota had to pull the car off the track. Because the failure happened within less than 90% of the race completion he will have a make up race at either Mid-Ohio or VIR where the points can be made up.