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Fogarty Excels At Mid-Ohio

Lexington, OH? Jon Fogarty soared to the pole position for Saturday?s EMCO Gears Classic presented by KeyBank when he toured the 2.258-mile Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course at a speed of 104.136 miles per hour. The race will mark the sixth Grand-Am Roles Sports Car Series race of the 2009 season.

For Fogarty, he claimed his ninth career pole and his first since the 2007 race at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca. Fogarty and teammate Alex Gurney co-drive the GAINSCO Auto Insurance Pontiac Riley fielded by Bob Stallings Racing, and the accomplished team is seeking an unprecedented third consecutive victory at the venerable Mid-Ohio track.

?We pushed for P1 from our out lap, and the pole was definitely on my mind. I took more risks at the outset,? Fogarty said. Even though Fogarty pushed hard at the beginning of qualifying, he didn?t claim the pole until his 11th time around. ?I love this circuit, as this was the first track I raced on outside of California, doing so in the 1995 SCCA run-offs.?

Memo Rojas grabbed the second fastest time with a speed of 103.632 mph in the TELMEX Lexus Riley owned by Chip Ganassi Racing with Felix Sabates. ?I pushed harder in the second part of the course, and the car got better as we went along,? Rojas said. Rojas said limited practice time affected his team and the others, and the Ganassi team guessed at the correct car set-up.

Scott Pruett co-drives with Rojas.

Mark Wilkins qualified third fastest in the AIM Autosport Ford Riley. Burt Frisselle shares the driving duties with Wilkins.

Fourth fastest time went to Brian Frisselle and teammate Max Angelelli in the SunTrust Ford Dallara.

Nic Jonsson and Ricardo Zonta timed fifth in the Krohn Racing Ford Lola.

Sixth through 10th were the teams of Romain Dumas and Timo Bernhard (Penske Porsche), Guy Cosmo and Scott Russell (Spirit of Daytona Porsche Coyote), John Pew and Michael Valiante (Shank Ford Riley), Mark Patterson and Oswaldo Negri Jr. (Shank Ford Riley) and Darren Law and David Donohue (Brumos Porsche Riley).

Sixteen Daytona Prototypes qualified for Saturday?s race.

Leh Keen set a qualifying record on the GT side with a speed of 95.344 mph in the Farnbacher Loles Porsche GT3. ?With the dark clouds rolling in, we went out early, although it seems to take about four laps to warm up the tires,? Keen said. ?We only got one good lap but the car was really good. Our team has a lot of momentum and we have a lot of high hopes for the race.?

Sixteen GT cars took a qualification run.

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