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Lots Of Road America Action On Saturday

It was another busy day at Road America Saturday. There were several qualifying sessions, and races providing a full day of on-track action.

ALMS (American LeMans Series) held two practice sessions today prior to qualifying. Jonny Cocker was fastest in the LMP class in both sessions, while Luis Diaz was quickest in both LMPC practice sessions.

In the morning practice session, Bill Auberlen had the fastest time in the GT class while Jan Magnussen led the field in the afternoon session.

In the GTP class, Wolf Henzler set the pace in the morning while Andy Lally topped the class in the afternoon practice.

The GT/GTC classes were first out to qualify at 3:10 p.m. For a 20-minute session.

The session was red-flagged at 3:18 when Andy Lally in his GTC Porsche911 GT3 Cup went off course and hit the wall at Turn 8.

The session resumed at 3:25 and ended at 3:30 p.m.

The GT pole went to Oliver Gavin, giving him a total of 19 poles in the series,

Jeroen Bleekemolen scored his fifth straight pole in the GTC series.

After his quick lap, Gavin said, “I’m delighted. It’s the first one (pole) for us this year. I don’t think anyone at the team will miss that we’ve has a difficult year. We’ve had a lot of ups and downs. The last few races have been good for us,” he said.

The LMP/LMPC classes began their qualifying session at 3:40 p.m. The 20-minute session ran without incident, and when time had expired, Jonny Cocker had the top speed in LMP and Luiz Diaz was fastest qualifier in LMPC.

Diaz was especially happy as he claimed his first pole of the year. “This feels great,” he said. “It is one of my favorite places to come. I’m very happy to be fighting for pole position here. To be honest, when I was here with Adrian (Fernandez), I thought it was the last chance to win at this track. This really is a great feeling to be back here,” he added.

In addition to ALMS qualifying, a total of six different series raced at the track on Saturday.

The Star Mazda Championship series was the only series to race on Saturday that will not run again on Sunday.

On the first lap of the 45-minute timed race, Mikael Grenier took the lead from his fourth starting spot as the field completed the first lap in close formation.

By the end of the second lap, the field began to spread out a bit with Grenier holding a slim lead over pole sitter Conor Daly, with Jorge Concalvez third, Connor De Phillippi fourth and Tristan Vaultier rounding out the top five.

While the field was working the fifth lap, Daly took the lead from Grenier and quickly opened up a lead on Grenier.

By the end of the tenth lap, Daly had opened up a 2.3 second lead on Grenier, who was being challenged for second by Concalvez

On the 13th lap, Grenier encountered an on-track problem, giving second to Concalvez and dropping Grenier back to 9th.

Daly was stretching out his lead on the 15th lap when as full-course yellow came out due to Dom Bastien sliding across the gravel and into the wall exiting Turn 10.

The green and white flags came out at the same time at the start of the 19th lap. The field was bunched up after the yellow, and as the pack entered Turn 5, a serious incident occurred as the car driven by Nick Andries and another car touched wheels. Andries got air borne and flipped several times before the car came to a stop upside down.

After the car was uprighted by safety workers, Andries climbed out, unhurt.

Following the incident, Daly took yellow and the checkered flags together to score a 1.5 second win over Goncalvez. DePhillippi was third, Anders Krohn finished fourth and Rusty Mitchell rounded out the top five.

It was Daly’s sixth win of the season in the Star Mazda Championship series.

In other races held Saturday, Sage Karam led-wire-to-wire in the USF2000 National Championship race to score a 9.6 second win over Mikhail Golkberg, with Karam’s Andretti Motorsport teammate, Zach Veach, finishing third.

Ross Smith came out on top of the Patron GT3 Challenge by 4.9 seconds over Amadeo Quiros, while Marco Cirone was third.

Jon Brownson took the top spot in the Cooper Tires Prototype Lites Championship event, finishing two seconds ahead of Charlie Shears, while Lucas Downs was another 1.5 seconds behind in third.

The VW Jetta TDI Cup race featured the closest finish of the day as Jarvis Gennari claimed the victory with second-place Chris Wehrheim and third-place Kevin Gleason as the top three finished less than .4 seconds apart at the line.

No results were received from the Skip Barber National race as the timing and scoring system failed during the race.

The USF2000, Patron GT3, CooperTires Prototype Lites, the Jetta TDI Cup and the Skip Barber National series will all run a second race on Sunday, along with the two hour, 45 minute ALMS event.

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