Grand-Am

Long Beach: Blackhawk Racing qualifying report

Rocky Moran, Jr. wrestles GAINSCO machine into eighth on Long Beach grid LONG BEACH, Calif.-- Rocky Moran, Jr. saved the best for last in this afternoon's Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series qualifying session on the streets of Long Beach, ripping ...

Published: Apr 8, 2006, 4:49 AM

Copy link

Share on Viber

Add as a preferred source

Rocky Moran, Jr. wrestles GAINSCO machine into eighth on Long Beach grid

LONG BEACH, Calif.-- Rocky Moran, Jr. saved the best for last in this afternoon's Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series qualifying session on the streets of Long Beach, ripping off a 1:21.021 time on his final lap in the No. 99 GAINSCO Auto Insurance/King Taco Pontiac Riley, good enough to secure an eighth-place starting position for tomorrow's Crown Royal Grand American Challenge of Long Beach. Moran will team up with Alex Gurney in the 90-minute sprint race.

While the team was hoping for a better starting position, the luck of the draw meant Moran, Jr. qualified in the first of two split groups of Daytona Prototypes. The second group had the benefit of a cleaner track with more rubber, and the cars kept getting faster and faster as the track worked in. Moran, Jr. said the session helped him and Gurney work out some nagging handling issues and is confident that the drop of the green will see him move the GAINSCO machine forward.

"We improved the car over this morning, and that's key to the race," the second-generation driver said. "Qualifying in the first group, we maybe lost a position or two, but there's nothing we can do about that. My job as the driver now is to work with what we've got and move up in the race. I really want to hand the car over to Alex in the top five."

Gurney was clear about his game plan for the race -- run fast and run clean.

"If we stay out of trouble, we're going to be in good shape, and we'll push as hard as we can the whole time. I think we can do that," he said. "We were expecting a lot more yellows this weekend, but everyone's been extremely tame so far. I'm not sure that'll continue tomorrow."

Team owner Bob Stallings took a long view of the race and is aiming to keep the GAINSCO team on a solid points footing.

"We like where we are, even though unfortunately we drew the first qualifying group. I think we'd have been up a few spots if we'd have been in the second," Stallings said. "Rocky's helped us out with getting the car settled down and we're learning a lot about the car and the track with every lap. I've talked to the drivers and I think we're in a very good spot to score a solid finish and stay right there in the points fight."

-br

We want your opinion!

What would you like to see on Motorsport.com?

Take our 5 minute survey.

- The Motorsport.com Team

Read and post comments

Share Or Save This Story

Copy link

Share on Viber

Previous article Long Beach: Qualifying times

Next article Long Beach: Blackhawk Racing's Moran injured

Top Comments

There are no comments at the moment. Would you like to write one?

View More & Comment

Latest news

Justin Allgaier wins 2026 NASCAR O'Reilly championship as Brandon Jones wins Homestead finale

NASCAR O'Reilly

NOAP NASCAR O'Reilly

Homestead-Miami

2 h

Justin Allgaier wins 2026 NASCAR O'Reilly championship as Brandon Jones wins Homestead finale

Andrew Patterson crashes into Homestead sand barrels, red-flags NASCAR O’Reilly finale

NASCAR O'Reilly

NOAP NASCAR O'Reilly

Homestead-Miami

3 h

Andrew Patterson crashes into Homestead sand barrels, red-flags NASCAR O’Reilly finale

Liam Lawson rues Brazilian GP qualifying mistake despite third-place grid start

Formula 1

F1 Formula 1

Sao Paulo GP

5 h

Liam Lawson rues Brazilian GP qualifying mistake despite third-place grid start

George Russell's Brazilian GP qualifying fury explained: "Pole was there for the taking"

Formula 1

F1 Formula 1

Sao Paulo GP

5 h

George Russell's Brazilian GP qualifying fury explained: "Pole was there for the taking"

Subscribe and access Motorsport.com with your ad-blocker.

From Formula 1 to MotoGP we report straight from the paddock because we love our sport, just like you. In order to keep delivering our expert journalism, our website uses advertising. Still, we want to give you the opportunity to enjoy an ad-free and tracker-free website and to continue using your adblocker.

You have 2 options:

Become a subscriber.
Disable your adblocker.

Subscribe now Already subscribed? Sign in here

Already disabled your adblocker?
Reload page

Manage Alerts