Chris Cumming kept up RSR Racing’s form in qualifying, giving the team a third straight Prototype Challenge pole position as the PC class of the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship prepares for a standalone Grand Prix of Kansas weekend at Kansas Speedway.
The weekend will run to a unique format with the class scheduled for a pair of 45 minutes races, without mandatory driver change pitstops. Instead the driver who qualified the car on Friday will drive the first race, the finishing order of which will set the line-up for the latter race. Points will be awarded only after the end of the second race.
The format led to several drivers getting a rare chance to qualify their respective charges, Cumming included as he co-drives the #08 entry with Alex Tagliani.
In the 15 minute qualifying session Cumming was one of three drivers to hold provisional pole as the best laps of the 2.37 mile ‘roval’ track fell throughout the time trials. Cumming finally struck the decisive blow with just two minutes remaining taking the pole time down to 1:11.839, a marker that proved too much for either PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports’ Frankie Montecalvo or 8Star Motorsports Sean Rayhall.
Montecalvo qualified his #52 second, Gunnar Jeannette to take the car for the second segment of the Saturday night races. Rayhall will start the opening race third, Luis Diaz to take the #25 for the points-paying race.
The second RSR Racing entry, shared between Duncan Ende and Bruno Junqueira, will start from fourth after Ende was tasked with qualifying the #09 which Junqueira put on PC pole at both Sebring and Laguna Seca.
CORE Autosport, whose drivers Jon Bennett and Colin Braun currently lead the PC points’ standings will start fifth after Bennett’s qualifying efforts. However, on a weekend when Braun paced all three practice sessions, the #54 remains a leading candidate for victory at the end of the Kansas features.
Starworks Motorsport’s pair of entries will start only eighth and ninth in the ten car field. Renger van der Zande, the CORE pair’s nearest challenger in the points sharing the eighth placed #8 with Mirco Schultis.