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Birmingham: Michael Shank Racing qualifying report

Michael Shank Racing takes fifth on Barber grid (Birmingham, AL)- July 30--Michael Shank Racing's Mike Borkowski and Kenny Wilden will start fifth on the grid in Sunday's Porsche 250 presented by Bradley Arant after Borkowski carded a fast ...

Edited: Jul 31, 2005, 10:32 PM

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Michael Shank Racing takes fifth on Barber grid

(Birmingham, AL)- July 30--Michael Shank Racing's Mike Borkowski and Kenny Wilden will start fifth on the grid in Sunday's Porsche 250 presented by Bradley Arant after Borkowski carded a fast lap time of 1:22.895-seconds on the 2.3-mile Barber Motorsports Park circuit in Birmingham, Alabama during Saturday's qualifying session.

The result is the fourth top-five qualifying effort for the Mears Motor Coach Pontiac/Riley of the season, and while the result was a good one, the team had been hoping for even more after running quickly in every session leading up to qualifying.

"Well, we are happy with the way the weekends gone so far, but it's just a little bit disappointing because we have been so fast and we think we could have done a little bit better. On the other hand, this series is so competitive that you really have to get everything right to be in the top-five, so we'll take fifth and concentrate on having a clean race tomorrow," said team owner Mike Shank. "Mike and Kenny are doing a great job for us, and hopefully we can stay out of trouble to be there at the finish."

After the team briefly held Borkowski in the pits at the start of the fifteen-minute qualifying session, he was able to get a gap in the traffic and get some quick laps in before on-track action was halted after just seven minutes of running due a competitors car crashing and costing Borkowski the chance to improve his time.

"We had a good gap in traffic, so at least we played the waiting game right at the start, but I know we had a little bit more time in the car," said Borkowski. "Obviously I'd loved to have got a couple more laps in, but we have been right there in the top five all weekend, so it's not a bad place to start and we have a really good race car for Sunday."

The large field running on the tight circuit could well create a chaotic race, but Borkowski has a lot of laps on this track and will be looking to stay out of trouble before turning the car over to Wilden.

"You are so busy in the car at this track, that guys in the slower cars might not be paying as much attention to their mirrors as they normally do, so hopefully that won't turn into a problem," said Borkowski. "We'll just have to be a little bit cautious, but of course on the other hand we know we have a good car capable of a strong finish and we'll want to be aggressive, because there are only a couple of places you can pass cleanly here."

Sunday's Porsche 250 presented by Bradley Arant will start at 1:00 PM EST, with the race being covered LIVE on Speed Channel.

-msr-

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