Valiante-Angelelli Capture Rolex Series Pole At VIR

By Joe Jennings
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Updated: April 26, 2008

Alton, Va. ? Michael Valiante put the SunTrust Racing Pontiac Dallara on the pole for Sunday?s Bosch Engineering 250, the fourth race of the Rolex Series season, at Virginia International Raceway.

The Canadian driver toured the 3.27-mile, 17-turn road course at a speed of 113.927 miles per hour to capture his first career pole position. ?It is a big accomplishment for this team after the bad wreck we had a week ago,? Valiante said. ?I am so pleased for them.?

Max Angelelli will co-drive with Valiante.

In Mexico City a week ago, the car was nearly destroyed in a grinding two-car accident with Angelelli at the wheel.

Until the post-race technical inspection, the pole had been temporarily held by Memo Rojas and Scott Pruett, driving the TELMEX Chip Ganassi with Felix Sabates Lexus Riley. The car?s wing measured outside tolerances, relegating them to the rear of the field along with the GAINSCO/Stallings championship entry of Jon Fogarty and Alex Gurney.

Brian Frisselle will start on the outside of the front row in the AIM Autosport Ford Riley. His speed was 113.734 mph, and his co-driver will be Mark Wilkins.

Second-row qualifiers were David Donohue and Darren Law in a Porsche Riley, and Joey Hand and Bill Auberlen in a Porsche Crawford.

Teenager Ricky Taylor, the son of veteran driver Wayne Taylor, qualified a Ford Crawford fifth. His co-drivers will be teenager Jared Beyer and the veteran Andy Wallace.

Sixth fastest was the Krohn Pontiac Riley of Nic Jonsson, who will be joined by F1 ace Ricardo Zonta.

Nineteen Daytona Prototypes qualified for the race.

In the GT class, 26 cars took qualification runs with Dominik Farnbacher pushing his Farnbacher Loles Racing Porsche GT3 Cup to the pole with a speed of 103.809 mph.

Farnbacher?s run was amazing as he has been without sleep for 42 hours while enduring an elongated flight from Germany to Richmond, Va.

Farnbacher will team with Dirk Werner for the race.

Robin Liddell and Andrew Davis will start second in a Pontiac GXP.R and James Gue and Randy Pobst will be in third in a Corvette.