Alex Job Racing - Laguna Seca qualifying 1-2

Laguna Seca Raceway
qualifying, Sept. 21, 2002

seventh pole 

Alex Job Racing collected its seventh GT pole in eight American Le Mans 
Series races this season.  Lucas Luhr set the quick time on his second flying 
lap in the No. 23 McKenna Xybernaut Porsche, with a lap time of one minute 
28.711 seconds on the 2.238-mile Laguna Seca Raceway road course.  His 
teammate Jörg Bergmeister was second in the No. 22 Porsche (1:29.069).  Luhr 
will drive with Sascha Maassen in Sunday's race and Bergmeister will be 
paired with Timo Bernhard.

"My lap was not really perfect," Luhr acknowledged.  "I made a small mistake. 
 The tires didn't come in as I expected so it took a little bit longer than 
usual.  But still I'm three-tenths ahead and that's enough.  We still need to 
work a little bit on our race setup but we can do that tomorrow morning and 
then hopefully have a good race."

Asked why he is so quick on the challenging track, Luhr replied, "It's my 
third time here and I really like it.  It's one of my favorite tracks, so it 
just feels like it belongs to me."

Bergmeister took only one fast lap, but made it stick.  He said his 
experience in the Porsche SuperCup series helped.  He won the 2001 
championship with eight poles and seven wins.

"I had a little bit of oversteer in the car which was quite good for this 
lap," he said.  "I was pushing really hard like in SuperCup last year.  I'm 
quite used to doing just one timed lap and that worked pretty well.  We still 
have to work on the setup, on the oversteering, and we'll start on [almost] 
new tires so we have to think about that for the race."

starring role

Lucas Luhr started the week on the set of a new IMAX movie called Speed.  He 
and Alex Job Racing are both featured in the movie, which covers speed in an 
array of different sports.  Luhr said the slow pace of film-making didn't 
suit him, but he enjoyed working with Tim Allen, who stars in the movie.  
"He's a very funny guy!" he enthused.