Grand-Am

Utah: Series qualifying report

Point Leader Fogarty Wins Fourth Consecutive, 13th Career Grand-Am Overall Pole Friday At Miller Motorsports Park Ham Edges Foster On Final GT Lap; Pair Make Up All Mazda Front Row TOOELE, Utah (Sept. 18, 2009) - While Jon Fogarty won his ...

Published: Oct 2, 2009, 4:13 PM

Copy link

Share on Viber

Add as a preferred source

Point Leader Fogarty Wins Fourth Consecutive, 13th Career Grand-Am Overall Pole Friday At Miller Motorsports Park

Ham Edges Foster On Final GT Lap; Pair Make Up All Mazda Front Row

TOOELE, Utah (Sept. 18, 2009) - While Jon Fogarty won his fourth consecutive pole position and series-tying 13th career overall pole Friday in Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series presented by Crown Royal Cask No. 16 Friday, the Daytona Prototype point leader viewed the session as a test for Saturday's Utah 250.

Fogarty and Alex Gurney, co-drivers of Bob Stallings Racing's No. 99 GAINSCO Pontiac Riley, enter Saturday's penultimate round of the 2009 campaign with a five-point cushion over Memo Rojas and Scott Pruett, drivers of Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates' No. 01 TELMEX Lexus Riley, and Brian Frisselle and Max Angelelli, drivers of the No. 10 SunTrust Ford Dallara (274-269).

Rojas and Frisselle both qualified for the second row for the two-hour, 45-minute event (SPEED live, 5:30 p.m. ET).

Fogarty was pressured for the pole throughout the 15-minute session by Timo Bernhard, who co-drives the Penske Racing No. 12 Verizon Wireless Porsche Riley with Romains Dumas. Fogarty ran a lap of 2:35.737 (103.698 mph) to snare his fifth pole in six races.

"We worked on getting our car more raceable rather than setting it up for qualifying," Fogarty said. "We had a very dominant car this morning, but knew that in the heat of the day conditions would change, and we tried to have the car drive good in these conditions. We expect these conditions to be similar to tomorrow's race, so we were treating qualifying more as a test session for tomorrow's race."

Bernhard clocked in second fastest, 2:36.560 (103.153 mph). While Penske Racing has yet to win in Rolex Series competition, Miller has produced first-time winners in all three prior Grand-Am races at the 4.486-mile circuit.

"I think the race pace will be closer to our time, so they will not run away from us," Bernhard said.

Rojas and Frisselle ran at close quarters throughout qualifying. Rojas ran 2:36.675 (103.077 mph) to edge Frisselle for third.

"It was really frustrating, because I caught Memo during my stint," Frisselle said. "I tried to move the gap back to get away from him, but he brought himself back to me and I was in his dirty air for my last lap - which is the fastest lap. I thought that was a cheap shot move."

Rojas, who has been battling bronchitis all week, did not think he was blocking.

"He did a cool down lap, and I did a cool down lap afterwards," Rojas said. "I left a gap enough - about three car lengths behind me - so I never blocked him, because he never got that close. The lap after that was my quickest lap, so I don't understand why he felt I blocked him. We weren't that close anyway. I was happy because we improved from practice, when we struggled a bit. I've been sick all week, and I didn't feel good this morning, so it was good for me to come back and get a good qualifying effort."

Mark Wilkins qualified fifth in the No. 61 AIM Autosport Ford Riley shared by Burt Frisselle, and will be joined in the third row by David Donohue, who drives the No. 58 Brumos Porsche Riley with Darren Law. Mike Forest, Mark Patterson, Rob Finlay and JC France rounded out the top 10.

***

Ham Edges Foster By Seven Thousandths For GT Pole

Nick Ham ran a lap of 2:50.052 (94.969 mph) to end Leh Keen's three-race Acxiom GT pole streak - shattering Keen's year-old track record in the process. Ham also denied Dempsey Racing its first Rolex Series pole, with Joe Foster second with a lap of 2:50.059 (94.969 mph).

"It was a good team effort, because we weren't happy after our first practice session," said Ham, who captured his fourth pole of the season and 10th of his career (good enough for a three-way tie for third all-time in GT) in the No. 70 Castrol Syntec Mazda RX-8, co-driven by Rolex 24 pole winner Sylvain Tremblay. "Fortunately, our engineers David Haskell and Marcus Shin made the car perfect, and it was just beautiful. We needed this, because we've been in a slump for the last couple of races. But please tell Patrick Dempsey I'm sorry we kept his team from their first pole."

Foster will co-drive the No. 40 Dempsey Racing Mazda RX-8 with Charles Espenlaub, who is subbing for Dempsey, who has an acting commitment.

Andrew Davis qualified third in the No. 57 BryanMark Financial/Stevenson Automotive Pontiac GXP.R, and will be joined by Keen on the second row. Keen and Dirk Werner, in the No. 87 Farnbacher Loles Racing Porsche GT3, can eliminate their championship rivals by finishing ahead of Kelly Collins, who qualified fifth in the No. 07 Team Drinkin' Mate Pontiac GXP.R. Keen and Werner enter the race with a 35-point lead over Collins, with only the Grand Prix of Miami on Oct. 10 at Homestead-Miami Speedway remaining on the 2009 schedule.

"The balance wasn't there for qualifying, so we'll have to work on the car," Keen said. "I'm a little disappointed after winning so many poles in a row, I wanted another one. But being on the second row tomorrow should be pretty good, because the race is what matters."

Rolex Series competitors will have a final practice session at 10:50 a.m., with the race taking the green flag at 3:30 p.m. MT.

-credit: grand-am

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 Utah: Lexus qualifying report

Next article Utah: Starting lineup

Top Comments

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

View More & Comment

Latest news

Spire claims Joe Gibbs Racing is now seeking nearly $150m in damages

NASCAR Cup

NAS NASCAR Cup

Spire claims Joe Gibbs Racing is now seeking nearly $150m in damages

Inception Racing switches to Corvette for 2027 IMSA GTD season

IMSA

IMSA IMSA 5 min

Inception Racing switches to Corvette for 2027 IMSA GTD season

Cadillac reveals date for F1 engine factory debut, thanks drivers for being “patient”

Formula 1

F1 Formula 1

United States GP

7 min

Cadillac reveals date for F1 engine factory debut, thanks drivers for being “patient”

Mission control: Inside the FIA and F1's latest answer to football's VAR

Formula 1

United States GP

Mission control: Inside the FIA and F1's latest answer to football's VAR

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