Rand Racing - Virginia overall pole position

Virginia International Raceway
qualifying, Aug. 31, 2002

overall pole

Rand Racing will start from the overall pole position for Sunday's Rolex 
Sports Car Series race at Virginia International Raceway.  Saturday 
qualifying was stopped due to heavy rain, so the SRP and SRPII class start 
order was determined by car points.  Terry Borcheller will start from the 
pole position in  the SRPII-class No. 8 Rand Racing Nissan Lola he drives 
with Anthony Lazzaro.  Ralf Kelleners will start the No. 7 Lola from fifth 
overall.  He will alternate driving stints with Niclas Jönsson and Marino 
Franchitti.

"The weather helped us out and we have a nice photo opportunity," strategist 
Thomas Blam said.  "20 years from now we'll put the picture up with the big 
SRP car next to us!"

wet track

Borcheller and Kelleners each completed one lap of the 3.27-mile road course 
before the qualifying session was stopped.  Borcheller agreed with the 
decision to end the session.  "Normally I wouldn't [agree], because I'm used 
to running in the rain from go-kart days and I typically do all right there," 
he said.  But "there were a couple of spots on the race track, particularly 
the front straightaway, where they were probably going to lose a couple of 
cars so it was a smart thing to do."

Borcheller said standing water on the front straight was difficult to see:  
"There were some areas on the front straight in particular where the gloss of 
the asphalt and the glare from the sky made it real hard to tell the 
difference between a puddle and just a slippery spot."

rain race

What does it take to win in the rain?  "Patience," Ralf Kelleners said.  "It 
takes patience not to go off.  It's difficult to follow the cars because you 
can't hardly see anything.  The session was stopped because there was 
aquaplaning, but we won't have that in the race because there will be more 
cars on the track."

Rand Racing strategist Thomas Blam says survival will be key.  "Since this is 
a five-hour race, just stay off the walls and the guardrails for the first 
four hours and hopefully you're one of the last ones staying around at the 
end.  You try to bolt on as  much downforce as you can.  You can do some 
things to the rear wing and add some dive planes to the front.  We'll 
probably put a bigger gurney on the rear and maybe raise the cars a bit to 
get them out of the water if there are a lot of puddles."

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Sylvia Proudfoot
spur07@cs.com
403 287 3945