Grand-Am – Sahlen’s Six Hours of the Glen – Qualifying
A Pontiac Day

A Friday morning practice time in 1:44.031 did end up as an accurate pointer to the form of the #99 Gainsco Riley Pontiac, because in the qualifying session in the afternoon, Alex Gurney went even quicker to take the pole, the only man to dip under 1:44 (1:43.878). That was almost half a second quicker than Scott Pruett could manage.

GT qualifying was much closer at the front, Paul Edwards taking the top spot in the #07 Banner Racing Pontiac, a tenth faster than Wolf Henzler in the Tafel Porsche.

In other Grand-Am news, the Grand American Road Racing Association and Sahlen’s announced today that Sahlen’s will continue to be the official hot dog of Grand-Am through to the end of 2009, following the recent signing of a three-year renewal.

Sahlen’s has been specializing in smokehouse meats since 1869, and has been a corporate GA partner since 2004. Sahlen’s Paddock Club provides hospitality for members and series drivers, teams and officials through freshly prepared meals – featuring Sahlen’s meat products – during most of the Rolex Sports Car Series race weekends.

Back to the track, and a sixth front row start of the season for the #99 Riley.

“Our car works very well here,” said Alex Gurney. “It was a pleasure to drive it. We’ve had some continuity with our drivers and the team this season, which is scary for a lot of other teams, and our engineer and the rest of the crew keep finding little bits here and there. Jon and I are scraping for every last little bit, and Pontiac obviously does a great job as does Riley. We’ve got the whole package; everything really adds up.”

“They’ve set the pace all year long,” said fellow front row man Scott Pruett. “We went out on old tires and we’ve been good on old tires. We came back to qualify second, and I’m happy for the entire TELMEX crew. We have a great group of guys and a great strategy, and the pit stops this year have all been picture perfect.”

Pat Long and Max Angelelli set the third and fourth best times, while Colin Braun was fifth quickest in the #75 Krohn Riley, a tad quicker than Nic Jonsson, who qualified the sister car. Second to sixth all set laps in the 1:44s. Qualifying was more representative of the best pace of most cars than is usually the case, the length of Saturday's race dictating that slower drivers didn't need to qualify (and start).

In the 1:45s were Auberlen, Enge, Negri, Valiante, Frisselle (Burt), Law and James. The latter, in the #6 Riley Lexus described the car as “as loose as it’s been all weekend so we were struggling a bit out there. But we’ll have a chance to make some adjustments in the morning and improve on what we’ve got.”

Burt Frisselle in the AIM Riley “can't wait for tomorrow because we always practice on heavy fuel loads and our race pace is always better than our practice pace.”

The Cheever Racing Fabcar and the #59 Brumos Riley didn’t set qualifying times and will start at the back of the DP pack.

Edwards claimed his first GT pole of the season, and with a win last time out, he remarked that “Grand-Am has made some nice rule changes for us that have really narrowed the gap for the competitors.”

Henzler, Dirk Werner and Lawson Aschenbach in the #30 Racers Edge Pontiac completed the top four.