Ricky Taylor scored his second Rolex Series pole position of the season, the SunTrust Racing driver setting the fastest time in qualifying for the Continental Tire 200 at The Glen.
The result for Taylor, who also set the pole time in May at New Jersey Motorsports Park, kept up the Wayne Taylor Racing run team’s astonishing run of form at Watkins Glen who will start from pole position for the third time in four races at the New York state track, which also hosts the NASCAR Sprint Cup and Nationwide Series this weekend.
“I think we have good cars here every time – every race we feel like we have a winning car,” said Taylor, who shares driving duties with Max Angelelli. “At this year’s six-hour, we had a little misfortune in the race. But we’ve had such good cars here on a regular basis, and the car once again in qualifying today was really good. We came here off a good Continental Tire test a few weeks ago that kind of set the stage for us coming here and unloading well. That was important for today because we ended up having no dry practice before qualifying. For me, as a driver, it was nice to have that confidence about brake zones and everything. I thank the team for giving me such a good car.”
Spirit of Daytona driver Antonio Garcia made the front row an all Chevrolet Corvette DP affair after a best lap of 1:06.192. Starworks Motorsport teammates Alex Popow and Lucas Luhr put the squad’s pair of Ford-Riley DP on the second row for Saturday’s two hour race. Championship leaders Memo Rojas and Scott Pruett will start fifth for Chip Ganassi Racing.
Experienced road-race Boris Said made it a qualifying sweep for the Corvette name, putting the Whelen Engineering #31 around the track fastest of the GT field with John Edward’s Stevenson Motorsport Camaro second fastest.
“Getting out of the Sprint Cup car and getting into the Corvette seemed easy because those were the first few laps I’d done in the dry,” commented Said after session. “I love this place. It feels good to get the pole. I’d love to do it in the Cup car tomorrow but I don’t think we have a prayer with our team but hopefully I can be in the top 15 in the Cup car.”
The AIM Autosport Ferrari of class points leader Jeff Segal and Emil Assentato will start from fourth in class, sharing the second row with the best Porsche in the field – that of Horton Autosport, the team that only joined the Rolex Series part way through the 2012 season.
The Continental Tire 200 at The Glen begins at 6pm local time (11pm UK) on Saturday August 11.
