Searcy Takes Lime Rock Pole with New Track Record
Lakeville, CT – Benjamin Searcy took pole for round three of the 2009 F2000 season at the last possible second during today’s qualifying session at Lime Rock. Searcy logged a 50.668, which broke the standing track record of 51.400 by an enormous margin. Chris Miller, Remy Audette and Matthew Inge rounded out the top five.
“We were running 50.8s the entire session,” explained Searcy, who won the season opener in his Z-Sports Van Diemen/Zetec in the wet in his first ever F2000 start. “We changed some aero on the car with a few minutes to go and then on my last lap I changed my line just a little bit into turn one which did it. It’s going to be tough to pass in the race so it’ll be important to try to stay out front at the start.”
Fellow American Chris Miller wasn’t far behind, only eight thousandths of a second to be exact. Miller delivered a 50.676 just seconds before Searcy’s pole lap to knock points leader Audette off the pole.
“It was a good session. We made some little changes and were able to get a good lap at the end even though I got held up a little by slower traffic. The car is going to be good for the race,” said Miller, driving the #85 Miller Milling JDC Motorsports entry.
Canadian Remy Audette had pole and appeared to be the man to beat for most of the session with his fast lap of 50.703. He will line up third for the 5:15pm 32-lap feature event of the day at Lime Rock. “The crew told me to keep pushing at the end,” commented Audette. “At the end there was a slower car in front of me going into turn one and with the yellow flag waving I wasn’t allowed to pass. It’s going to be a very tight race since the times are so close.”
Matthew Inge qualified fourth with a lap of 50.726.
Tom Fatur, who paced yesterday’s practice day wasn’t far behind as he qualified fifth and was the fastest of the Masters class drivers. “I’m keeping up for us old guys. The session was ok, we solved our charging issues and actually have two alternators on the car right now which is costing us some power. We could have probably gone a bit faster during the session but I wanted to save the tires for the race, especially the last five or ten laps,” said Fatur.
Jonathan Scarallo, John Dole, Chris Camadella, Al Guibord, Jr. and Fabio Orsolon rounded out the top ten as the first sixteen cars qualified within a second of one another, making this one of the closest fields in series history.
Alegra’s Victor Carbone lost an engine in this morning’s session and the Alegra Motorsports crew is rushing to put another engine, borrowed from Jesse Yorio, into the car to make the grid for the race. Meanwhile local favorite Phil Lombardi also lost an engine during the morning practice session and his weekend is done.
This afternoon’s race starts at 5:15pm, with live commentary on F2000ChampionshipSeries.com.
Race #1 Grid:
Pos PIC No. Name Class Best Tm Best Spd In Lap Diff
1 1 10 Benjamin Searcy F2 50.668 108.708 32 -
2 2 85 Chris Miller F2 50.676 108.691 31 +0.008
3 3 21 Remy Audette F2 50.703 108.633 19 +0.035
4 4 02 Matthew Inge F2 50.726 108.583 22 +0.058
5 5 70 Tom Fatur/M F2 50.865 108.287 20 +0.197
6 6 22 Jonathan Scarallo F2 50.878 108.259 20 +0.210
7 7 08 John Dole/M F2 50.812 108.400 10 +0.144
8 8 4 Chris Camadella/M F2 51.000 108.000 18 +0.332
9 9 95 Al Guibord, Jr. F2 51.029 107.939 22 +0.361
10 10 26 Fabio Orsolon F2 51.087 107.816 28 +0.419
11 11 39 Chris Fahan/M F2 51.179 107.622 6 +0.511
12 12 12 Colin Alexander F2 51.223 107.530 6 +0.555
13 13 20 Caitlin Johnston F2 51.273 107.425 30 +0.605
14 14 41 Brian Belardi F2 51.306 107.356 8 +0.638
15 15 16 Peter Gonzalez/M F2 51.406 107.147 11 +0.738
16 16 97 Chris Gumprecht F2 51.549 106.850 6 +0.881
17 17 27 Craig Clawson/M F2 51.711 106.515 14 +1.043
18 18 25 Jeff McCusker/M F2 51.739 106.457 24 +1.071
19 19 7 Brent Gilkes/M F2 51.762 106.410 10 +1.094
20 20 80 Bobby Caldwell F2 51.722 106.492 6 +1.054
21 21 94 Blake Teeter F2 51.848 106.234 20 +1.180
22 22 90 Robert Wright/M F2 51.932 106.062 13 +1.264
23 23 00 Chris Burke F2 52.457 105.000 6 +1.789
24 24 69 Paul Farmer/M F2 52.491 104.932 28 +1.823
25 25 83 Charles Finelli/M F2 52.378 105.159 10 +1.710
26 26 96 Alejandro Munoz F2 52.467 104.980 20 +1.799
27 29 23 Victor Carbone F2 -.--- - 0