Juncos Racing Struggles in Wet Qualifying Session - Daly Forced to Start at Back of Grid

Joliet, July 31, 2010: In a qualifying session consumed with wetness and rain this morning, Juncos Racing struggled to place themselves at the top of the field like they had in yesterday's first-and dry-practice session. Anticipating a dry qualifying session this morning, the team chose to park their cars early and not take an unnecessary risk when raindrops appeared during yesterday's second official practice session. The choice resulted in a lack of practice time on a wet racetrack, costing the team what could have been their best all-around qualifying session of the season today.

At the end of the qualifying session, Conor Daly was penalized for a technical infraction. Daly's rear wing flap was found to be one quarter of a millimeter above the end plates which contravenes the Star Mazda Championship rules. Daly's complete rear wing setup was supplied by Star Mazda, but it has now become apparent to the team that although Juncos Racing used spec parts on Daly's car, the wings can in fact be deemed illegal because of differences in manufacturing. Daly's qualifying lap times have been erased, and he will be forced to start at the back of the grid for this afternoon's race.

"The Juncos Racing team did a fantastic job once again," said Conor Daly. "We hadn't run in the wet before, and we put in a pretty competitive lap time initially, but then the series informed us that we had another interesting penalty. I don't really know what to say about it because it seems pretty silly to me, but bring on the race. We have one of the best cars out there, and I'm looking forward to an action-packed race."

Teammates Rusty Mitchell and Tatiana Calderon will start today's standing-start race side by side on row six.

"It just wasn't a consistent qualifying session for me today," said Rusty Mitchell. "I was really only able to put together two good laps, and then my motor started to get really hot. After that, it just stopped running, ending my session. The guys are working really hard to get the motor changed in time for the race, so I'm hoping we will all be ready to compete this afternoon."

"I'm a little disappointed," said Tatiana Calderon. "I was expecting today to be like yesterday was for me which was amazing, but unfortunately it wasn't. It's just qualifying, though, not the race, so I have another chance this afternoon. I think today was a good experience for me because I've never driven in the rain in a Formula Mazda before this morning. The day's not over yet, and I still want to push to finish in the top five in the race."

Juncos Racing driver Sean Burstyn did not participate in this morning's qualifying session and will not participate in the race this afternoon due to personal commitments to today's religious ceremonies, but he will be back full throttle for all of tomorrow's on-track festivities.