When one door closes another one opens, and for Bryan Sellers this means stepping foot into a whole new world of opportunity. His racing career has seen him collect wins across North America’s most prestigious and challenging circuits, culminating in championship titles along the way. He has mastered a wide variety of machinery, making trips to victory lane in just about every car he has ever driven.
As the 2025 season approaches, Sellers is going in a whole new direction. Last September, it was announced that he would be taking on an expanded role within DXDT Racing as Team Manager.
“There are some similarities,” Sellers explained. “You're still at the racetrack, and your job is still to try and extract the best performance possible out of the team, no matter what role you're in. But how you do that as a driver versus a Team Manager has been eye opening. It's been a fun experience for me.”
The decision to pivot and take on this challenge came at the perfect moment in his career trajectory, and he felt ready to venture into something new.
“It’s a very unique opportunity,” he stated. “David (Askew) offered me an opportunity to step into a consultant role about two years ago while continuing with the team as a driver. As things continued to progress and he looked to continue to expand the program, that came with an offer for me to take a step and truly invest myself into that culture and that job. It just came to me at the right place at the right time. I was happy with what I had accomplished as a driver, and I didn’t feel like I would look back and have any regrets about stepping away from driving when I did. It felt like the correct decision to make that move, and I still feel that way now.”
Sellers is a self-described goal-oriented person and finds a great deal of satisfaction in helping others reach their objectives. While he has always enjoyed the challenge of accomplishing goals from a driver’s perspective, he is now seeing the opposite side as he focuses on the team’s overall success.
“It’s all about trying to find ways to get everyone to be able to thrive in the same environment,” he said. “It’s a big challenge, but it’s super rewarding. I feel lucky to be able to step into a program with people like our Team Principal Erin Gahagan and Team Owner David Askew, who have done this successfully for so many years. Their input has been great, it would be so hard to jump into this and just figure it out on your own.”
A large component of his role as Team Manager is focused on personnel and performance-related decision making, while identifying areas for improvement. It encompasses many moving parts, but he is primarily evaluating and examining the specifics of staff responsibilities and operational elements.
His history as a driver provides him with a unique repertoire of experiences to draw from, although he recognizes that he is still far from knowing it all, which is a reality that he welcomes with open arms.
“It doesn’t prepare you for everything,” he emphasized. “There are a lot of new things I’m learning now that I thought I was already educated on, but I’m quickly realizing that is not the case. That’s part of the allure, I’m enjoying having to figure out all the new sides.”
“However, my career has granted me such a unique look into every different aspect and department that makes up a race team,” he went on. “I was fortunate enough to deal with all those elements within a team environment, and I got to absorb a lot of information from highly successful people and also hear what they wish could be changed in order to help them further. I got to see the positives as well as the faults from all areas, from the crew, to management, engineering, and so on. It’s rare to get such a pure, honest look into what people want and need to build a better program. My hope now is that I’ll be able to take all of that into account and apply it.”
Moreover, the knowledge he possesses from his time behind the wheel will serve as a formidable asset in how the team is able to prepare the car heading into each event on the calendar.
“It gives me a different view because I know how the mentality changes on a weekend where you go into a track that doesn't suit the car's strengths, and I’m more aware of the amount of work that will be required going into those weekends from a driver’s perspective. I know how much harder we have to push, and how you need to dig deeper to get the most out of your performance when you’re not where you want to be.”
Heading into the 2025 GT World Challenge America powered by AWS season, DXDT Racing’s goals remain relatively unchanged. After earning dozens of wins and podiums the year prior, they have established themselves as frontrunners in the series and the aim is to keep the momentum going as they welcome a new driver lineup with Blake McDonald and Matt Bell.
“It may sound a little bit cliché, but I want us to win,” he exclaimed. “Our SRO program is not changing massively, it’s staying pretty much intact, we just have a new driver lineup. I believe they will give us more opportunities to win races and fight for a championship. We’re all coming in with a positive attitude, and everyone is working towards becoming better and showing a lot of commitment and investment into getting the results we want. That kind of mindset and dedication is what can really change a program, that’s how you win.”
“On top of Blake and Matt, we also have Jeff Burton and Philip Ellis returning with us at Regulator Racing,” he continued. “Their success last season and the steps forward they made were astronomical. I’ve been so impressed with how those two have worked together. We all know how amazing Philip is and what he's capable of. Watching him drive is like poetry in motion, but what I think is the most awe-inspiring thing is what he’s been able to do with Jeff and how he’s been able to contribute so much to his progression and development as a driver.”
He concluded by saying that “we have two sets of drivers that can show up and compete on any given weekend. We feel good about the group of people we have around us.”