Lucas Luhr set the fastest time in qualifying as the American Le Mans Series (ALMS) returned to racing at Lime Rock Park after the June break in the schedule.
The German lapped the 1.5mile circuit in just 44.396 seconds to claim his first pole of the season in the Muscle Milk sponsored HPD ARX-03c he shares with Klaus Graf. The pair lead the class points standings over the Rebellion Racing drivers absent from the Connecticut weekend.
In the absence of the Swiss team their P1 class opposition comes from the Dyson Racing Lola-Mazda and the DeltaWing-Elan, with Katherine Legge and Andy Meyrick sharing driving duties once again. Chris Dyson qualified the Dyson Lola second fastest, but with a best lap almost a second slower than Luhr’s pole winning effort.
While the DeltaWing will start the two hour, 45 minutes race from deep in the field the best of the P2 cars, the Level 5 Motorsports entry of Ryan Briscoe and Scott Tucker, placed in class pole by Briscoe with Marino Franchitti responsible for the time in the sister car that earned Tucker’s team a 1-2 in class with the pair cars from rival team Extreme Speed Motorsports on the third row of the grid.
The Noah’s Ark alike two-by-two theme – at odds with the sweltering heat of the session – continued at the front of the GT class, with the pair of BMW Team RLL Z4 showing the way. Filling for Joey Hand alongside Dirk Mueller in the #56 car John Edwards took pole position from his first ALMS qualifying session with a best time of 50.996 seconds, with Maxime Martin less than two tenths slower to complete the BMW front row. Oliver Gavin was third quickest, with the Risi Competizione Ferrari splitting the two Corvette Racing entries back on home turf after a torrid 24 Hours of Le Mans.
Colin Braun won pole in PC for CORE Autosport, the top five in the spec class covered by less than half a second.
Spencer Pumpelly only needed an early lap to claim pole in GTC. After posting the lap of 51.155 he returned the Flying Lizard Motorsports car to the pits, intending to return to the track later in the session for a final assault on pole position. However, with Jeroen Bleekemolen’s 55.317 second lap coming as close as anyone did to Pumpelly’s time he was able to the keep the position without being pushed into defence.
