Pruett And Magnussen Pole Winners At Long Beach

Fast qualifier Scott Sharp shown exiting hairpin during practice on Friday.  [Joe Jennings Photo]

Long Beach, Calif. – Scott Pruett and Jan Magnussen captured pole honors in Tudor United SportsCar Series Championship qualifications at Long Beach on Friday afternoon.  The speed runs set the field for Saturday’s Tequila Patron Sports Car Showcase at Long Beach, the third sports-car event of the new season.

Pruett put the Chip Ganassi Ford EcoBoost on the Prototype pole with a rapid late run of

1:15.325 seconds around the 1.986-mile street course.  His speed was 94.056 miles per hour.

The perennial champion scored his first pole of season and the 33^rd in North American sports-car racing, putting him fifth on the all-time list and the second on the active list behind Bill Auberlen.

For Ford, it earned it’s first-ever pole with the EcoBoost engine.

Said Pruett, “At Long Beach, the longer you run there’s more rubber on the track, and then you get braver and braver, and you start scraping the walls.  I couldn’t be more proud of the team, as we have been struggling.  Winning at Sebring and getting the pole here makes all those late hours and those seven-day week’s worthwhile.”

Pruett said the pole is important given that the race is a short-one.

To gain the pole, Pruett first diced with Christian Fittipaldi and thereafter with Oswaldo Negri, Jr.  The latter ended up a close second with a time of 1:15.366 seconds, only four hundredths of a second back.

Negri drives the Michael Shank Racing with Curb/Agajanian Ford EcoBoost entry.

For the 100-minute race, Pruett will be joined by co-driver Memo Rojas and Negri will partner with John Pew.

Fittipaldi ended up third fastest in the Action Express Corvette DP.  His co-driver is Joao Barbosa.

Magnussen pushed the Corvette Racing Chevrolet Corvette C7.R to the pole with a late run that jumped him from third to first.

For the Dane, he did a lap in 1:17.393 seconds or 91.026 mph to win his second Long Beach pole and 17^th career North American sports-car pole.

Said Magnussen, “This is a new car and a fantastic one, but we haven’t been able to prove how good it is.  Hopefully, our problems are behind us.  Qualifying went according to plan and I had to find a gap to get a run.  After that, it was a matter of finding a little bit here and there.  I was already faster than I had been in a simulation run but I decided to run an additional lap.  I pushed hard and didn’t hit any walls.”

Antonio Garcia co-drives with Magnussen.

Auberlen pushed the BMW Team RLL Z4 GTE to the outside of the GTLM front row with a time of 1:18.091 seconds.  Andy Priaulx co-drives with Auberlen.

Dirk Mueller and John Edwards timed third fastest in the second BMW Team RLL Z4 GTE.

Eleven Prototypes and 10 GTLM qualified for the race.

Earlier in day, the Wayne Taylor Racing team received a shot in the arm when Konica Minolta signed on as the primary sponsor of the Corvette DP driven by Ricky and Jordan Taylor and occasionally by road racing ace Max Angelelli.

The sponsorship announcement was made before a large crowd on the Chevrolet stage at the Long Beach Lifestyle Expo alongside the street course.  A sizable group of dignitaries and fans were on hand to listen to the announcement and witness the unveiling of the car’s new colors.

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