Action Express Racing will start the inaugural Grand-Am of the Americas from the second row of the grid, following qualifying at the Circuit of the Americas.
The #9 Corvette Daytona Prototype will start from fourth on the grid after Burt Frisselle set a lap time of 2:01.127-seconds.
“I haven’t qualified a car in a while so I was probably more nervous than I needed to be the whole day but this is such a good team,” said Burt Frisselle, who will share the car in the race with Joao Barbosa. “The team did an engine change today and still gave me enough time to go out and do a mock qualifying run. So hats off to all of the Action Express guys, Team Chevy, and all of these guys. Fourth is not what our goal is. Our goal is to qualify on pole and to lead every lap. But it’s a good start, we have a good car. We’re going to go to work tonight because we have to get better when you look at the time chart. But I couldn’t be with a better group of guys – they make my job easy.”
Qualifying didn’t go as well, however, for the #5 Corvette DP as Brian Frisselle suffered traffic issues in the 15 minute session around the 3.4-mile circuit.
“I was really hoping that we could have been closer to the front, but on the ‘perfect’ lap for the tires, I just got caught up with another car and I lost the lap,” said Frisselle, who will share the #5 car with Christian Fittipaldi. “But the fact that Burt was fourth shows a little bit of the effort that Action Express has been putting in, and I hope we can execute our race plan and move up at the start of the race.”
“We’re thrilled to be back racing,” added Team Manager Gary Nelson. “Each lap – as qualifying showed – we got faster and faster. And we’d like to keep that trend going all the way to the end of the race! I love this track. I really enjoy it. I’ve always enjoyed Texas anyway, but coming here is really amazing. It’s a first-class place.”
