Other open wheel

JRCS: Sears Point Triple Crown Qualifying

Sonoma, CA -- In his final lap of qualifying, Silicon Valley software executive Frank Dancs captured the pole with a fast time of 1:13.175, beating Nathan Smith by .559 seconds in the first of a series of three races of the Russell/USAC Triple Crown ...

Edited: Mar 6, 2009, 7:36 PM

Copy link

Share on Viber

Add as a preferred source

Sonoma, CA -- In his final lap of qualifying, Silicon Valley software executive Frank Dancs captured the pole with a fast time of 1:13.175, beating Nathan Smith by .559 seconds in the first of a series of three races of the Russell/USAC Triple Crown Pro Series, presented by Yokohama.

"Nathan was the fastest driver at the half way mark, but we came in and made an adjustment, which helped the car a lot," said Dancs. "I didn't know we had the pole until the end of the session, and as it turns out, my last three laps were all good enough to beat him."

Smith, who is competing in this year's Triple Crown for free as part of a prize package he won in last year's Russell amateur series, was the fastest driver early in the session. "My plan was to warm the car up, and shoot a couple of hot laps. I came in to check where we were on times, and I was ahead by a couple of tenths," he said. "We waited to see if my times would stand. But in the last five minutes, Dancs ripped off a couple of really quick laps."

Smith returned to the track to warm up his car again, and on his final lap turned in a 1:13.734, which was not enough to beat Dancs.

The youngest racer in the series, Timothy Barber, from San Francisco, qualified third, beating out fourth place qualifier Brian Snyder by two tenths of a second. In a very tight field, Leonardo Maia, Jeff Oppenheim, Camilo Zurcher and Cory Turner were separated by only by three tenths of a second.

This year's Russell/USAC Triple Crown Pro Series attracted drivers from as far as Bogotá, Columbia and as near as Sonoma, California. The race will be immediately proceeding the final NASCAR Winston Cup qualifying session on Saturday.

<pre> 2000 RUSSELL/USAC TRIPLE CROWN PRO SERIES QUALIFYING RESULTS Pos Car # Driver Sponsor Hometown Results 1 11 Frank Dancs Buyacom Computer Corp Hillsborough, CA 1:13.175 2 7 Nathan Smith Sierra West Airlines/ Escalon, CA 1:13.734 Cogdill/Giomi Real Est. 3 8 Timothy Barber San Francisco, CA 1:14.176 4 18 Brian Snyder ETDC Oil Pumps/FF Santa Barbara, CA 1:14.376 5 20 Leonardo Maia TPF Software Oakland, CA 1:14.447 6 10 Jeff Oppenheim Sonoma, CA 1:14.451 7 16 Camilo Zurcher Bogotá, Columbia 1:14.485 8 6 Cory Turner Bakersfield, CA 1:14.692 9 4 Bob Hagerty Beaumont, TX 1:16.281 10 12 Max Toy B6 Prod/Miracle Auto Body Danville, CA 1:16.406 11 17 Kirk Morrison Ultranectar.com San Francisco, CA 1:16.631

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 SBRS: Bryan Sellers Holds Slim Lead Going to Road America

Next article Derek Hill Quick at Monza

Top Comments

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

View More & Comment

Latest news

Toprak Razgatlioglu going through a "difficult time" after shoulder surgery

MotoGP

MGP MotoGP

Malaysian GP

23 min

Toprak Razgatlioglu going through a "difficult time" after shoulder surgery

Yet another DNF for Cadillac’s Valtteri Bottas: ‘Sometimes we don’t quite understand it’

Formula 1

F1 Formula 1

United States GP

52 min

Yet another DNF for Cadillac’s Valtteri Bottas: ‘Sometimes we don’t quite understand it’

Diogo Moreira: “From what we saw in the Austria test, Honda could fight for MotoGP title next year”

MotoGP

MGP MotoGP 1 h

Diogo Moreira: “From what we saw in the Austria test, Honda could fight for MotoGP title next year”

Lando Norris' LN4 Fusion granted entry to F2 for 2027

FIA F2

F2 FIA F2 1 h

Lando Norris' LN4 Fusion granted entry to F2 for 2027

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