Connery to Pole at Road Atlanta
Braselton, GA – On a late afternoon hot race track at Road Atlanta, Kyle Connery scored his first pole position since 2011 in the F2000 Championship Series. Better yet, it was in the same car, the No. 91 Van Diemen, which took Connery to his first pair of F2000 wins two years ago at Road Atlanta. Connery’s fast lap of 1:25.488 put him on the WISKO Pole ahead of Tim Minor and David Grant, who paced morning practice.
“We sort of threw a hail-mary there with the setup, we changed the ride height, gears and much more,” said Connery, who finished third in the 2011 title fight and won six races in dominating fashion two years ago.
2012 was an off year for the aspiring driver, trying to develop the RFR chassis. But now Connery is back in his proven Van Diemen with engineer James Lee, on a track they swept with two wins nearly two years ago to the day.
Connery added he thinks he ran run the 1:25.4 pace in the race, a pace he improved on from practice to qualifying by a staggering two seconds.
Minor’s perfect season streak was broke with Connery’s pole, although the Championship points leader is coming off two wins at VIR and will start second for Friday’s first race of the doubleheader weekend at the 12-turn Road Atlanta.
“It should be a good race, my car is fine, but we broke a lower pick-up earlier today. I didn’t go as quick as I wanted,” said Minor, who missed practice time as the Ski Motorsports team fixed the No. 88 Citation.
Grant, meanwhile, was third quick, a tenth off Minor is his best F2000 qualifying effort in three attempts.
The Polestar driver commented he was still getting acclimated to the No. 29 Van Diemen, and learning how it was different than his Toyota Atlantic car, which he won four races and the Atlantic Championship Series title in last season.
The veteran should factor into the race as well, with two Atlantic wins and thousands of laps around Road Atlanta.
Zach Craigo was fourth quick for Front Range Motorsports with Kevin Kopp completing the top five for WISKO.
Rounding out the top ten were Steve Bamford, Sergio Pasian, Roberto Lorena for HP-Tech, Brent Gilkes, and Jim Libecco, sporting a new engine after a motor failure at VIR.
Keith McCrone was 11th quick in the Metrik chassis ahead of Matt McDonough, the 2006 Champion driving the Radon chassis for Paul Farmer. “Fast-Matt” said he had not been in a car for 18 months and in 2011, qualified the Radon sixth at Canadian Tire Motorsports Park.
Friday continues with an early 9:00 a.m. warm-up for the F2000 field followed by race one of the weekend and round three of the 2013 season at 1:20 p.m. Stay tuned to www.F2000Series.com for the latest.
Qualifying Results
PosNo.NameBest TmBest SpdIn LapDiffGap 1 91 Kyle Connery 1:25.488 106.962 10 - - 2 88 Tim Minor/M 1:25.774 106.606 2 +0.286 +0.286 3 29 David Grant 1:25.882 106.472 3 +0.394 +0.108 4 18 Zach Craigo 1:26.416 105.814 10 +0.928 +0.534 5 22 Kevin Kopp 1:26.648 105.530 3 +1.160 +0.232 6 71 Steve Bamford/M 1:27.029 105.068 14 +1.541 +0.381 7 23 Sergio Pasian 1:27.111 104.970 4 +1.623 +0.082 8 9 Roberto Lorena 1:27.112 104.968 9 +1.624 +0.001 9 7 Brent Gilkes/M 1:27.492 104.512 9 +2.004 +0.380 10 98 Jim Libecco 1:27.681 104.287 9 +2.193 +0.189 11 0 Keith McCrone/M 1:27.729 104.230 7 +2.241 +0.048 12 69 Matt McDonough 1:27.780 104.170 2 +2.292 +0.051 13 67 Dave Weitzenhof/M 1:27.901 104.026 5 +2.413 +0.121 14 19 Dwight Rider/M 1:27.969 103.946 10 +2.481 +0.068 15 99 Federico Mosconi 1:28.199 103.675 5 +2.711 +0.230 16 00 Tim Dunn/M 1:28.639 103.160 5 +3.151 +0.440 17 01 John McCusker 1:28.667 103.127 10 +3.179 +0.028 18 90 Robert Wright/M 1:29.422 102.257 3 +3.934 +0.559 19 39 Shane Morris 1:29.505 102.162 7 +4.017 +0.083 20 51 Dan Denison/M 1:28.863 102.900 19 +3.375 +0.196 21 16 Peter Gonzalez/M 1:29.587 102.068 3 +4.099 +0.082 22 6 David Sugg 1:30.058 101.535 3 +4.570 +0.471 23 78 James Belay 1:33.611 97.681 10 +8.123 +3.553 24 42 Bill Jordan/M -.--- - 0 - -