Short Qualifying Session Produces La Rocca Pole
Watkins Glen, NY – In 14 qualifying rounds now complete for the 2012 F2000 Championship Series season, Robert La Rocca, the 2012 Champion, has put his No. 10 HP-Tech Van Diemen on pole 12 times. In the final qualifying round of the year at Watkins Glen International, a shortened session left a seven-minute shootout for drivers to run their fastest laps of the weekend, producing another La Rocca pole ahead of Wyatt Gooden and Rob Nicholas.
The front row sets up a dramatic conclusion to the 2012 season, as La Rocca and Gooden have had plenty of on-track meetings over the course of a La Rocca-dominated year. The most recent drama took place in round 13 at Watkins Glen on Saturday, with the two making contact coming to the green and white flags while fighting for the lead.
La Rocca would go onto win his 10th race of the year for the three-car HP-Tech team from Florida, while Gooden managed to bring a damaged Quantum Racing Services Van Diemen home in third.
The extended session stoppage was brought out when Matthew Inge made heavy contact in the No. 20 LTD Motorsports entry, with a lengthy cleanup required. Other cars involved in the same session stoppage included the No. 22 Group A Racing entry of Gustavo Rizzo, and Chris Camadella in the No. 77 GTP Motorsports Radon.
Following Nicholas, who took the Masters Class win on Saturday in his first start of 2012, were Niki Coello and Cesar Lapoint, in his best HP-Tech performance of the season so far.
Sergio Pasian, picking up speed very quickly, was sixth quick in his debut F2000 weekend, also running the F1600 races at Watkins Glen.
David Grant was seventh fastest for Polestar Racing Group, also moving up the time sheets in his first F2000 Series event, while WISKO F2000 teammates Danyel Torres and Kevin Kopp were eighth and ninth, with Tim Paul rebounding from a 14th place race on Saturday to qualifying 10th.
Following his sixth place race result on Saturday, Zach Craigo qualified 11th for Front Range Motorsports ahead of Chris Livengood for John Walko Racing. Then it was Tom Fatur, Keith McCrone and Kyle Connery as 37 cars posted times on a dry race track with temperatures in the 50s after a cold start to the weekend that featured rain and sleet.
The final race of the 2012 F2000 Championship Series season starts at 2:10 local time, with live coverage available on www.F2000Series.com and live timing on Race Monitor.
Qualifying Results
Pos No. Name Best Tm Best Spd In Lap Diff Gap 1 10 Robert LaRocca 1:52.361 107.973 6 - - 2 6 Wyatt Gooden 1:53.112 107.257 6 +0.751 +0.751 3 89 Rob Nicholas/M 1:53.233 107.142 7 +0.872 +0.121 4 81 Niki Coello 1:53.407 106.978 6 +1.046 +0.174 5 33 Cesar Lapoint 1:54.666 105.803 5 +2.305 +1.259 6 64 Sergio Pasian 1:55.408 105.123 6 +3.047 +0.742 7 8 David Grant 1:55.573 104.973 6 +3.212 +0.165 8 39 Danyel Torres 1:55.737 104.824 6 +3.376 +0.164 9 66 Kevin Kopp 1:55.792 104.774 6 +3.431 +0.055 10 06 Tim Paul 1:55.938 104.642 6 +3.577 +0.146 11 18 Zach Craigo 1:56.179 104.425 5 +3.818 +0.241 12 37 Chris Livengood 1:56.243 104.368 5 +3.882 +0.064 13 70 Tom Fatur/M 1:56.258 104.354 6 +3.897 +0.015 14 0 Keith McCrone/M 1:56.510 104.128 5 +4.149 +0.252 15 91 Kyle Connery 1:56.522 104.118 3 +4.161 +0.012 16 42 Bill Jordan/M 1:56.719 103.942 6 +4.358 +0.197 17 52 Dean Baker/M 1:56.758 103.907 4 +4.397 +0.039 18 67 Dave Weitzenhof/M 1:56.860 103.817 4 +4.499 +0.102 19 90 Robert Wright/M 1:57.477 103.271 4 +5.116 +0.617 20 83 Charles Finelli 1:57.753 103.029 4 +5.392 +0.276 21 3 Matt Machiko 1:58.142 102.690 3 +5.781 +0.389 22 19 John Brumder/M 1:58.630 102.268 6 +6.269 +0.488 23 22 Gustavo Rizzo 1:58.815 102.108 4 +6.454 +0.185 24 46 Doug Rocco/M 1:59.600 101.438 5 +7.239 +0.785 25 16 Peter Gonzalez/M 1:59.812 101.259 4 +7.451 +0.212 26 25 Jeff McCusker/M 1:59.914 101.173 5 +7.553 +0.102 27 9 Jose Montiel 2:00.200 100.932 4 +7.839 +0.286 28 57 Scott Baroody 2:00.395 100.768 5 +8.034 +0.195 29 71 Steve Bamford 2:00.687 100.524 4 +8.326 +0.292 30 48 Will Haney 2:00.819 100.415 5 +8.458 +0.132 31 51 Dan Denison/M 2:00.915 100.335 3 +8.554 +0.096 32 73 Vaughn Horvath 2:00.923 100.328 4 +8.562 +0.008 33 86 Jim Hanrahan/M 2:02.839 98.763 4 +10.478 +1.916 34 35 Eric Presbrey 2:02.852 98.753 5 +10.491 +0.013 35 61 Tom Drake/M 2:03.379 98.331 4 +11.018 +0.527 36 31 Brendan Puderbach 2:16.811 88.677 2 +24.450 +13.432 37 27 Craig Clawson/M 3:15.098 62.184 2 +1:22.737 +58.287 38 20 Matthew Inge -.--- - 0 - - 39 77 Chris Camadella/M -.--- - 0 - - 40 72 Thomas Schwietz/M -.--- - 0 - - 41 47 Chris Monteleone -.--- - 0 - -