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GRAND-AM
GRAND-AM: Pole At Mid-Ohio Goes To Gainsco’s Fogarty
Jon Fogarty followed up his pole from last weekend's Rolex Series race at Detroit with pole today for Saturday's EMCO Gears Classic, Live! on SPEED.
The Red Dragon Corvette topped the DP field in qualifying for the second time in the span of a week. (Photo: Brian Cleary/GRAND-AM)
Detroit Grand Prix pole winner Jon Fogarty went two for two on Friday as he scored his second GRAND-AM Rolex Sports Car Series pole position in as many weeks, snaring the top spot for Saturday’s EMCO Gears Classic (LIVE on SPEED, 4:30 p.m. ET) with a fast lap time of 1:18.079-seconds at the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course.
The pole is the 21st of Fogarty’s GRAND-AM career, burnishing his current status as GRAND-AM’s most successful qualifier.
Starting alongside Fogarty will be fellow Corvette racer Michael Valiante in the No. 90 Spirit of Daytona Corvette after his fastest lap of the 15-minute session came up just .364-seconds short as Corvettes locked out the first five spots on the starting grid.
The qualifying session was a hard-fought affair, as three Corvettes went off track in pursuit of the point for the 26-car combined field. Fogarty was the first to push too far as he went off track in the Keyhole corner. Not to be outdone, both the No. 5 Action Express Corvette of Terry Borcheller and the No. 10 SunTrust machine of Ricky Taylor both exceeded the limit as they navigated through the keyhole corner.
“We definitely made some pretty aggressive moves for qualifying and we were hopeful they were going to be the right moves and they obviously were,”said Fogarty, who also won the pole in the 2011 visit to Mid-Ohio. “We kind of wanted to make a jump and find something and I hope we did. I think tomorrow’s race is going to be a different story. Qualifying here and racing here are definitely two different things and we have a car that’s good for qualifying. So we are going to have to put our thinking caps on. But our engineer John Ward and the GAINSCO guys are capable of that. I’m just really happy for the GAINSCO team, though. It’s nice to have two poles in a row and show good pace. It was pretty bold changes and I’m happy we made them for qualifying.”
The leading Riley qualifier was Memo Rojas in the No. 01 BMW-powered Ganassi machine, with John Pew posting a quick time just over .6-seconds adrift of the multi-time Rolex Series champion. The two Starworks entries, including the championship-leading No. 8 of Ryan Dalziel and Enzo Potolicchio, sat out the qualifying session.
The first six cars on the GT Class field were within one second of John Edwards’ pole-winning time of 1:25.083-seconds in the No. 57 Stevenson Motorsports Camaro GT.R that he will share with Robin Liddell. Andrew Davis notched a front row start with the Brumos Racing Porsche 911 GT3 entry, as Paul Edwards confirmed the recent strong form of Detroit-winning Autohaus Motorsports with his run to third on the grid.
Edwards, who had to sit out several early rounds of the 2012 season after a ski injury, was relishing the run to pole but knows that Saturday’s race will likely see a lot of action up front. And after his NJMP pole didn’t convert into the lead that he wanted, he’s got a different plan for Saturday’s race start.
“Well, after my last pole at New Jersey, I made a mistake being a little too cautious into turn one, letting Sylvain (Tremblay) ride around the outside of me,” said Edwards. “So, I won’t be making that mistake tomorrow, definitely. I’ve got to be on my game from the very start. We’ll see if we can execute well tomorrow-I think we’ll be one of the favorites. We never had to make a big change today, so I think rolling off the truck with a good set-up was key to putting us in a good starting position for practice and so we could just tune and make small adjustments from there.
RESULTS: Qualifying
With experience at Skip Barber Racing School, Lime Rock Park, and several IndyCar teams, Matt Cleary has covered open wheel and sports car racing for over a decade. Working for Sunday Group Management, Cleary also provides strategic motorsports consulting for a range of clients in the sport. You can follow him on Twitter @sundaygroup.
The pole is the 21st of Fogarty’s GRAND-AM career, burnishing his current status as GRAND-AM’s most successful qualifier.
Starting alongside Fogarty will be fellow Corvette racer Michael Valiante in the No. 90 Spirit of Daytona Corvette after his fastest lap of the 15-minute session came up just .364-seconds short as Corvettes locked out the first five spots on the starting grid.
The qualifying session was a hard-fought affair, as three Corvettes went off track in pursuit of the point for the 26-car combined field. Fogarty was the first to push too far as he went off track in the Keyhole corner. Not to be outdone, both the No. 5 Action Express Corvette of Terry Borcheller and the No. 10 SunTrust machine of Ricky Taylor both exceeded the limit as they navigated through the keyhole corner.
“We definitely made some pretty aggressive moves for qualifying and we were hopeful they were going to be the right moves and they obviously were,”said Fogarty, who also won the pole in the 2011 visit to Mid-Ohio. “We kind of wanted to make a jump and find something and I hope we did. I think tomorrow’s race is going to be a different story. Qualifying here and racing here are definitely two different things and we have a car that’s good for qualifying. So we are going to have to put our thinking caps on. But our engineer John Ward and the GAINSCO guys are capable of that. I’m just really happy for the GAINSCO team, though. It’s nice to have two poles in a row and show good pace. It was pretty bold changes and I’m happy we made them for qualifying.”
The leading Riley qualifier was Memo Rojas in the No. 01 BMW-powered Ganassi machine, with John Pew posting a quick time just over .6-seconds adrift of the multi-time Rolex Series champion. The two Starworks entries, including the championship-leading No. 8 of Ryan Dalziel and Enzo Potolicchio, sat out the qualifying session.
The first six cars on the GT Class field were within one second of John Edwards’ pole-winning time of 1:25.083-seconds in the No. 57 Stevenson Motorsports Camaro GT.R that he will share with Robin Liddell. Andrew Davis notched a front row start with the Brumos Racing Porsche 911 GT3 entry, as Paul Edwards confirmed the recent strong form of Detroit-winning Autohaus Motorsports with his run to third on the grid.
Edwards, who had to sit out several early rounds of the 2012 season after a ski injury, was relishing the run to pole but knows that Saturday’s race will likely see a lot of action up front. And after his NJMP pole didn’t convert into the lead that he wanted, he’s got a different plan for Saturday’s race start.
“Well, after my last pole at New Jersey, I made a mistake being a little too cautious into turn one, letting Sylvain (Tremblay) ride around the outside of me,” said Edwards. “So, I won’t be making that mistake tomorrow, definitely. I’ve got to be on my game from the very start. We’ll see if we can execute well tomorrow-I think we’ll be one of the favorites. We never had to make a big change today, so I think rolling off the truck with a good set-up was key to putting us in a good starting position for practice and so we could just tune and make small adjustments from there.
RESULTS: Qualifying
With experience at Skip Barber Racing School, Lime Rock Park, and several IndyCar teams, Matt Cleary has covered open wheel and sports car racing for over a decade. Working for Sunday Group Management, Cleary also provides strategic motorsports consulting for a range of clients in the sport. You can follow him on Twitter @sundaygroup.
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