Fast Cat in Nashville Has Alex As His Name
Third Career Pole for SSM Driver Key to Small Oval Intentions
by Allan Brewer
allan@indyproracer.com
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Sam Schmidt Motorsports’ Alex Lloyd.
Photo: ChrisJonesIRL |
Sam Schmidt Motorsports’ Alex Lloyd won pole for Saturday's Sunbelt Rentals 100 Indy Pro Series event at Nashville Speedway. Lloyd’s best lap of 181.841 mph (25.7368 seconds) over the 1.33 mile oval bested AFS Racing’s Wade Cunningham (181.530 mph, 25.7808 seconds) and an impressively quick Robbie Pecorari (180.851 mph, 25.8777 seconds).
The fast time earned for Lloyd and his team a thousand dollar check and three more points toward his already-huge lead in the 2007 Indy Pro Series championship points standings. But of even more importance, the leading spot on the grid of this unusual cement-surfaced racetrack gives him advantage over the rest of the field at a place where passing room will be hard to find.
The importance of pole on this small oval was reinforced when Lloyd commented afterwards, "It's definitely a good thing. We put a lot of emphasis on qualifying well today.”
“The track has been very weird, very slippery, although very quick - quicker than the pole time last year. Setup-wise it's been a little bit of a challenge to make sure we got it right, but all credit to the Sam Schmidt Motorsports team. They did a great job, and we got a very good setup in the end.”
Wade Cunningham continued his strong resurgence over the mid-part of the calendar with another rapidly paced performance in the red and yellow number twenty-seven racecar, overcoming a close encounter with the SAFER barrier earlier.
“We weren't really sure how qualifying was going to go after I made friends with the wall in the first practice,” he said. “We literally slapped the car together for the second session, the short 20 minute session, and went out to try to find some balance.”
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Robbie Pecorari.
Photo: DanaGarrettIRL |
“Qualifying was a bit of a guess. I'm sort of surprised to be in second; but also disappointed that we weren't half a tenth quicker because we would have had the pole. I'm sure the accident contributed to our relative lack of speed in qualifying.”
“It would have been nice to have some qualifying sims in practice but instead we worked on race setup,” he continued. “In hindsight, it's pretty good considering the morning we had. Now it's time to go make the car better for the race in final warm up.”
Pennsylvanian Pecorari Continues to Improve on Pace
Team KMA’s Robbie Pecorari also continued to improve on gains made recently with his times today. “We changed some things around going into Iowa, and ever since then it's been going a lot better,” he said. “The results have been showing.”
“The team gave me a great car for qualifying. It's great to be able to start on the front again where we should be. We'll just hold our position at least and see what happens as the race goes on."
Hideki Mutoh of Panther Racing and Guthrie Racing’s Sean Guthrie completed the top five spots on the grid for the 3:30 PM EDT start that will be broadcast on streaming video live online at the Indy Pro Series website and ESPN360. Live online coverage from trackside will also continue here on IndyProRacer.com from Nashville on Saturday.
Sunbelt Rentals 100 Qualifying Results
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