GRAND AM (LAGUNA SECA) - Fogarty Continues Front-Row Streak

The No. 99 GAINSCO/Bob Stallings Racing Pontiac Riley kept its streak of 2007 Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series presented by Crown Royal Special Reserve front-row starting spots alive on Saturday at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, as Jon Fogarty put the No. 99 machine on the pole position for Sunday’s U.S. Sports Car Invitational delivered by Luggage Express (SPEED, Live, 4:00 p.m. ET).

Fogarty broke the existing Daytona Prototype track record by nearly three seconds with a lap at 1:20.787 (99.729 mph) to qualify on the pole position for the first time in his Rolex Series career. The previous record of 1:24.357 (95.508 mph) was set by Oswaldo Negri Jr. in 2005, and the huge gap between Fogarty’s time and the previous record can be attributed in large part to a number of improvements made to the racing surface since the last Rolex Series visit to the facility in 2006.

While Fogarty and co-driver Alex Gurney have started every race this season from the front row, the top five qualifiers were covered by less than two-tenths of a second. Fogarty and Gurney enter the race looking for their second career Rolex Series victory and first since the Mexico City 400k in March.

“It’s great for the GAINSCO Auto Insurance team to be consistently as quick as we are in qualifying,” Fogarty said. “We need to be that consistent in the races, however, if we want to contend for this championship. Our engineer, Kyle Brannan, has given us a great car to work with. Both Alex and I have been quick behind the wheel, so we’re excited for the race. I think we have a real good shot at keeping it up front this weekend. It’s really tough in a field as competitive as this. I think today’s times are indicative of how close the race is going to be. Starting up front is going to help. We’ve seen time and time again that qualifying up front does not necessarily guarantee you a podium spot. We’re just going to have to play the race strategy correctly, and that’s what it’s going to take, along with being quick.”

Starting alongside Fogarty will be current Daytona Prototype points co-leader and 2005 co-champion Max Angelelli in the No. 10 SunTrust Pontiac Riley. Angelelli posted a best lap at 1:20.834 (99.671 mph) and has combined with co-driver Jan Magnussen to finish inside the top five in their past 11 races together, a streak that began with their victory in last year’s event at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca.

“Obviously, it’s a very nice feeling,” Angelelli said of his front-row starting position. “My attitude will not change. We want to win, and we need to win, in order to win the championship. We’re going to push as usual. I’m pretty pleased with the front row. It’s nice and I’m happy. Our target was that we needed to finish in the top three in all the races. That was our feeling, because this championship is so competitive. It’s so close, you cannot miss a race. Basically, it takes five or six races to recover, and you don’t know if you can ever make it. We want to be there. We want to be consistent, and I have to thank my teammate, Jan Magnussen, who shared the car with me since the first race. I mean, you need to have both parts engaged.”

Patrick Long was third in qualifying with a lap at 1:20.856 (99.644 mph) in the No. 23 Ruby Tuesday Championship Racing Team Porsche Crawford, matching the car’s best starting position of the season to date. Long and his co-driver, 2006 Daytona Prototype champion Jörg Bergmeister, are looking to end a victory drought of more than a year for the No. 23 team in Sunday’s U.S. Sports Car Invitational delivered by Luggage Express. The team’s last victory came in the 2006 VIR 400 with Long sharing the spoils of victory with then-co-driver Mike Rockenfeller.

“It seems like we’ve been making steady progress since the beginning of the season,” Long said. “The race was a little bit tough for us at VIR, but we’ve put that behind us. We’re here at a much different circuit at Laguna Seca and so far, so good. We thought we might have had a chance for a front row there. I got a little bit held up with a few different bits of adversity. I ran out of fuel on our last flyer, which was looking pretty good. That’s all behind us now and it’s onto the race. This is one of the most difficult championships I’ve ever been in and it’s only getting stronger. As we progress, guys like the (No.) 10 and the (No.) 99 (teams) are doing their homework, so it’s sort of a moving target. But the boys are real positive and I am as well.”

Christian Fittipaldi qualified fourth in the No. 39 Crown Royal Special Reserve/Cheever Racing Porsche Crawford with a lap at 1:20.882 (99.612 mph). Fittipaldi is co-driving with Harrison Brix, who hails from nearby San Jose, Calif. Memo Rojas completed the top five with a lap at 1:20.894 (99.597 mph) in the No. 01 TELMEX/Chip Ganassi Racing Lexus Riley he shares with 2004 Daytona Prototype co-champion Scott Pruett.

The No. 75 Krohn Racing Pontiac Riley, which Max Papis originally qualified sixth, as well as Burt Frisselle’s No. 61 Exchange Traded Gold/AIM Autosport Lexus Riley, Ryan Dalziel’s No. 11 CITGO/SAMAX Pontiac Riley and the No. 05 Luggage Express Team Sigalsport BMW Riley qualified by Matthew Alhadeff, were all sent to the rear of the field due to technical infractions discovered in post-qualifying technical inspection.

SALAMA SCORES GRAND-AM KONI CHALLENGE GRAND SPORT POLE

Don Salama—who co-drove to the 2006 Grand-Am KONI Challenge Series Street Tuner (ST) championship with Will Turner—is now enjoying success at the front of the Grand Sport (GS) class as evidenced by his pole-winning run in qualifying for Sunday’s Monterey 200 at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca.

Salama turned a best lap of 1:36.485 (83.503 mph) in the No. 97 Turner Motorsport BMW M3 for the fifth class pole of his KONI Challenge Series career, but his first GS class pole position. Salama will once again share the ride with Turner, and the longtime teammates look to improve upon the season-best result of eighth they achieved last month at Iowa Speedway.

“The Turner Motorsport BMW was actually pretty good all weekend,” Salama said. “We were sort of just fine-tuning handling. We knew on a cool morning like this that new tires were going to push a little bit and we were going to have to bring them. I knew I wouldn’t do fast lap early on, so I needed to really work at it. Luckily, we didn’t get a black flag during the qualifying session, so I ended up doing my fast lap on Lap 6 or 7, when I knew I got a half second off getting better grip, frankly, on a very cool morning like today.”

Tom Long made it two front-row results in two races by placing the No. 99 Fresh From Florida/Automatic Racing BMW M3 second on the grid at 1:36.621 (83.386 mph). Long’s co-driver, David Russell, started the No. 99 machine from the pole position in last month’s GS race at Iowa Speedway, and the teammates head into Sunday’s race looking for their third straight top-seven result.

“I’m really proud of the Fresh From Florida/Automatic Racing team,” said Long. “Yesterday in the test day, we wee struggling to find the setup, but now we’ve found it. It’s really great to be on the front row for the second time in a row. I think it’s going to be really important to be up front because the beautiful fruits and vegetables on the hood of the Fresh From Florida car will look nice on the front row. It’s also good to be up front racing with the guys you always race against. The traffic situation is so much better when you’re racing up front.”

After Dean Martin’s third-best qualifying time in the No. 52 Rehagen Racing Ford Mustang GT was disallowed due to a technical infraction, Joe Foster moved to third on the starting grid with a lap at 1:37.151 (82.931 mph) in the No. 55 Supercuts/Hyper Sport Ford Mustang GT. Foster—who is currently second in the GS driver standings—is sharing the ride with Scott Maxwell.

Tommy Constantine put the No. 33 Playboy/Vonage/Palms Nissan 350Z fourth on the grid with a lap at 1:37.218 (82.874 mph). Constantine’s entered co-drivers are Mike Borkowski and David Murry. Jep Thornton filled out the top five with a lap at 1:37.247 (82.849 mph) in the No. 09 Fresh From Florida/Automatic Racing BMW M3 he is sharing with Jeff Segal.