Daly on Pole for Fifth Time This Season for Race Two At New Jersey Motorsports Park
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Millville, June 27, 2010: Conor Daly qualified on the pole for the third consecutive time and the fifth time this season for the final race of the weekend at New Jersey Motorsports Park. With a fastest lap time of 1:15.840, Daly was the only driver in this morning's session to record a lap time under the one minute and sixteen seconds mark. Daly's qualifying result today awards him another valuable point to add to the driver's championship giving him a lead of 44 points-the amount of points awarded for a race win-over second place driver Anders Krohn.
"The Juncos Racing car was fantastic again," said Daly. "I thought the track felt faster than it actually was, but everyone was going slower today, so it will be interesting to see how that turns out during the race. We have a really good racecar once again, so we are really looking forward to what I hope will be a penalty-free race."
Daly started yesterday's race from the pole position as well, but after being given a false penalty that was later declared by officials as a mistake, he ultimately finished the race in third position. The 18-year-old won his first career race in the Star Mazda Championship presented by Goodyear at New Jersey Motorsports Park last year and is itching to do it again this year.
Tatiana Calderon improved her qualifying lap time from yesterday by nearly one second today. In the split qualifying sessions, Calderon sat at the top of the time sheet for most of her session and ended up second fastest in her group. After combining the times from both groups, Calderon's fastest lap time of 1:16.781 earned her an 11th place starting position-only .004 behind 10th place qualifier Jorge Goncalvez. After his car-damaging incident in yesterday's race, Teammate Rusty Mitchell struggled to improve his lap time throughout the session. Mitchell's fastest lap time of 1:16.835 today resulted in a 12th place starting position.
"I'm really, really happy with how I did in today's qualifying session," said Calderon. "I improved my fastest lap time by almost an entire second. I think what helped me improve so much was the confidence I gained yesterday in the race. The car was really good, and I'm really, really happy with the team. I was only .2 off the fifth place qualifying time and running lap times with some of the top competitors. The race is going to be really interesting for me because I haven't had the chance to be in the fast group yet, but now I'm finally getting there."
"The car felt pretty good," said Mitchell. "During the session, I felt like I was going faster than I actually was, but it looks like everything just went slower today for me. The Juncos Racing guys worked really hard all night last night to repair the damage to my car from yesterday's race, so we should be ready to challenge the field today. Once again, I want to say congratulations to the team and Conor (Daly) for winning another pole and to Tatiana (Calderon) for doing a really good job today as well."
Round Seven of the Star Mazda Championship will commence at 3:05 p.m. EST today at the New Jersey Motorsports Park in Millville, New Jersey. The race will be broadcast live on HDNet, and live timing and scoring will be available through the series website at www.starmazda.com. For more information, please go to www.juncosracing.com.