Mexico City native Rojas earns his first career Rolex Series pole at Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez . (LAT photo)
Memo Rojas will start on the pole for his home race Saturday (SPEED, Live, 4 p.m. ET), the Mexico City 250 at the Autodromo Hermanos Rodriguez, for the Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series presented by Crown Royal Cask No. 16 after setting a track record in his No. 01 TELMEX Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates Lexus Riley.
Currently leading the point standings by 13, Rojas – who has won the opening two Rolex Series races – notched a time of 1:19.508 (113.196 mph), nearly a second-and-a-half faster than last year’s pole time. The pole was Rojas’ first in 16 career starts, and the team’s first since last September at Miller Motorsports Park. In addition to collecting the XPEL Pole Award, Rojas and co-driver Scott Pruett also hope for their third straight win to start 2008.
“I’m really happy to have won my first Rolex Series pole here in Mexico. It was a great effort by the team," related Rojas. "We struggled with chassis setup, but thankfully we made the right decisions towards the end of the last practice session and in qualifying. We’ll see tomorrow. The race has yet to start and we’ve got a lot of work to do.”
Outside front row starter Mark Wilkins also earned his first career front row start, taking second with a time of 1:19.537 (113.155 mph), only .029 seconds behind Rojas. The co-driver of the No. 61 AIM Autosport Exchange Traded Gold Ford Riley will co-drive the car with Brian Frisselle, and the team is looking for its first career victory on the 2.5-mile, 14-turn track.
David Donohue, who recorded the pole in last month’s GAINSCO Grand Prix of Miami at Homestead-Miami Speedway, qualified third (1:19.652) in the No. 58 Brumos Racing Porsche Riley, ahead of Fogarty (1:19.706) in the No. 99 GAINSCO/Bob Stallings Racing Pontiac Riley and Frisselle’s brother Burt Frisselle (1:20.141) in the No. 47 Doran Racing BSI/CDOC Ford Dallara. Ten drivers posted times faster than last year’s record qualifying time (1:21.221, Colin Braun).
In the earlier Rolex GT qualifying session, German Pierre Kaffer took the No. 87 Farnbacher Loles Racing Porsche GT3 to his first career series pole with a time of 1:26.621 (103.901 mph). Kaffer, who is teaming with defending Rolex Series driving champion Dirk Werner this weekend and making his second start with the team this season, is the third driver in as many races in 2008 to score a GT pole.
Kelly Collins, a former Mexico City 250 GT race winner, will start from the outside of the front row after setting a time of 1:26.631 (103.889 mph) in the No. 07 Banner Racing Banner Engineering Pontiac GXP.R. Rounding out the top five in GT were No. 69 SpeedSource FXDD Mazda RX-8 co-driver Jeff Segal (1:26.970), No. 57 Stevenson Motorsports Stevenson Automotive/BryanMark Financial Pontiac GXP.R co-driver Andrew Davis (1:26.980) and No. 70 SpeedSource Mazdaspeed/Castrol Syntec Mazda RX-8 co-driver Nick Ham (1:27.180).
The 250-mile or two-hour, 45-minute race is scheduled to start at 4:15 p.m. ET Saturday.
