Minor Grabs Summit Point Pole Position
Summit Point, WV – A late afternoon qualifying session for the F2000 Championship Series at Summit Point on a drying race track with lap times tumbling saw local expert and 2013 F2000 Champion Tim Minor grab the pole position at the very last opportunity in his No. 88 Citation for Ski Motorsports. Minor took the pole ahead of Kyle Connery, in the No. 91 Van Diemen while David Grant, in another Van Diemen, for Polestar Racing Group was third.
Minor clinched his first F2000 title at the last event which took place at Mid-Ohio after a dominating season. But before his run-away 2013 streak started, Minor had one F2000 win to date, and that came at Summit Point in 2009. The veteran racer may have more laps around Summit Point than anyone else in the F2000 paddock. He also has more poles than anyone else in 2013, taking yet another WISKO Pole Award at Summit Point on Friday.
Minor and Connery have been the sharp end of the field all year, and are one and two in the Championship. Third in the Championship chase and lining up third for Saturday’s race? David Grant.
The day was originally set to have five practice sessions and qualifying sessions for both races, but weather led to a change that had Series officials schedule one qualifying session for race one while drivers and teams got six practices on the day. The second race, on Sunday, will have its grid set based on the fastest laps in race one.
Following the Championship trio was HP-Tech’s Santino Ferrucci in the No. 10 Van Diemen, putting in a lap time good enough for fourth position.
Lining up on row three will be WISKO Racing F2000 teammates Federico Mosconi and Kevin Kopp. For Kopp, Summit Point marks a home race and a location where he landed on the podium in his Van Diemen in 2012. For Mosconi, the Italian/American driver seemed to lap more than everyone else in the earlier practice rain sessions, taking advantage of a clear track to turn lap after lap on his west-weather Hoosier spec tires.
The WISKO teammates, however, couldn’t match their WISKO F1600 counterparts, who swept the front row in the F1600 Series as both open wheel categories share the Summit Point weekend with professional motorcycle racing.
Roberto Lorena qualified another HP-Tech entry in seventh, while Rob Nicholas made his first appearance of the season in eighth. Dean Baker, who is ever so close, along with Mosconi, to taking CellMark Paper Hard Charger honors for the entire season, was ninth. Tom Fatur rounded out the top ten for GTP Motorsports in the No. 70 Van Diemen.
Doing double for the weekend, and racing in F1600 as well, Steve Bamford qualified 11th.
The finale weekend at Summit Point continues with rounds 13 and 14, the final two races of the 2013 F2000 season, with an 11:45am local time green flag scheduled for both Saturday and Sunday.
Qualifying Results
PosNo.NameLapsBest TmMake/ModelDiff 1 88 Tim Minor/M 15 1:11.549 Citation Zetec - 2 91 Kyle Connery 17 1:11.574 Van Diemen Zetec +0.025 3 29 David Grant 18 1:11.615 Van Diemen Zetec +0.066 4 10 Santino Ferrucci 16 1:12.368 Van Diemen Zetec +0.819 5 99 Federico Mosconi 19 1:12.638 Van Diemen Zetec +1.089 6 22 Kevin Kopp 13 1:12.782 Van Diemen Zetec +1.233 7 9 Roberto Lorena 15 1:13.406 Van Diemen Zetec +1.857 8 89 Rob Nicholas/M 12 1:13.703 Van Diemen Zetec +2.154 9 52 Dean Baker/M 18 1:13.779 Van Diemen Zetec +2.230 10 70 Tom Fatur/M 15 1:13.782 Van Diemen Zetec +2.233 11 71 Steve Bamford/M 17 1:13.813 Van Diemen Zetec +2.264 12 25 Nick Palacio 10 1:13.919 Van Diemen Zetec +2.370 13 98 Jim Libecco 12 1:14.363 Van Diemen Zetec +2.814 14 0 Keith McCrone/M 16 1:14.478 Metrik Zetec +2.929 15 00 Tim Dunn/M 16 1:14.543 Metrik Zetec +2.994 16 37 Chris Livengood 9 1:14.874 RFR Zetec +3.325 17 01 John McCusker 17 1:15.136 RFR Zetec +3.587 18 8 Jose Montiel 17 1:15.326 Van Dieman Zetec +3.777 19 35 Eric Presbrey/M 17 1:15.661 Van Diemen Zetec +4.112 20 90 Robert Wright/M 18 1:15.923 Radon Zetec +4.374 21 51 Dan Denison/M 16 1:16.172 Van Diemen Zetec +4.623 22 7 Brent Gilkes/M 18 1:16.983 Van Diemen Zetec +5.434 23 12 Bob Reid/M 18 1:18.302 RFR Zetec +6.753 24 16 Peter Gonzalez/M 15 1:18.371 Radon Zetec +6.822 25 47 Chris Monteleone 17 1:19.534 Van Diemen Pinto +7.985 26 67 Dave Weitzenhof/M 5 1:22.741 Citation Zetec +11.192 27 26 Alain Matra/M 0 -.--- Van Diemen Zetec - 28 4 Davy D'Addario 0 -.--- RFR Zetec -