Tony Ave captures Nazareth pole

By Patrick Jennings - Motorsport.com

Tony Ave captured his first Toyota Atlantic Series pole after intermittent drizzle brought a premature end to Saturday's Toyota Atlantic qualifying session at Nazareth, Pennsylvania. As a result, the second round of the Toyota Atlantic Series will start based on practice times. Ave, driving the P-1 Racing/Miler Genuine Draft Swift, topped the practice sheets on Friday with a time of 23.223 seconds (144.648 miles per hour). Ave, 29, scored his only series victory in 1996 at Miami/Homestead. In addition, he finished second at Milwaukee in 1997. Ave returns to the Toyota Atlantic Series in 2001, after suffering sever leg injuries in a club race at Road America in 1997.

"We didn't have the balance right at all for the first part of the session, so we were just trying some things, but since we were off the pace, we had to get that sorted out first," Ave explained.

Second-year driver, Hoover Orsi, starts second. "We changed the set up back to what we had before the last session and the car was really good again, so we finally got on top," Orsi stated. "We are very happy with the setup of the car now," he continued. Orsi, driving for Hylton Motorsports, finished seventh in the Atlantic Championship last year with three third place finishes at Homestead, Milwaukee, and Cleveland.

Rookie, Rodolpho Lavin, will roll of the grid in the third position. The team experienced a little bit of understeer in turn three, but Lavin was able to manage a top-three starting position.

Rounding out the top-five are Stephan Roy, Joey Hand, and Jonathan Macri.