Gregg
Repeats Kentucky Debut Performance
Sam Schmidt Motorsports Owns Front Row for Bluegrass 100
Sparta, Ky. -
For the sixth time in nine races, Sam Schmidt Motorsports
put two cars on the front row of a Menards Infiniti Pro
Series race with Travis Gregg taking the pole and Jaime
Camara qualifying second at the 1.5-mile Kentucky
Speedway.
Travis Gregg
ranked seventh in the combined results from the day's
practice session, but had no problem reeling his fourth
pole award of the year. With a lap time of 28.3462
seconds (187.962 miles per hour), Gregg put the #7 Lucas
Oil Special Sam Schmidt Motorsports entry first on the
qualifying grid. Camara, a 24-year-old Brazilian native
living in Miami, qualified outside of the front row with a
time of 28.5992 (187.962 MPH). Atlanta, Ga., native Chris
Festa qualified the #19 SpacePak/CareCentric Sam Schmidt
Motorsports entry seventh with a lap time of 28.8377
(184.758 MPH).
|
BLUEGRASS 100 QUALIFYING MENARDS
INFINITI PRO SERIES RESULTS |
| Pos |
No |
Driver
Name |
Best Time |
Best Speed |
Best Lap |
Total Laps |
| 1 |
7 |
Travis
Gregg |
28.3462 |
187.962 |
1 |
2 |
| 2 |
1 |
Jaime
Camara |
28.5992 |
186.299 |
2 |
2 |
| 3 |
20 |
Jay
Drake |
28.6899 |
185.710 |
2 |
2 |
| 4 |
9 |
Nick
Bussell |
28.7129 |
185.561 |
2 |
2 |
| 5 |
26 |
Marco
Andretti |
28.7970 |
185.019 |
1 |
2 |
| 6 |
6 |
Jon
Herb |
28.8358 |
184.770 |
1 |
2 |
|
7 |
19 |
Chris Festa |
28.8377 |
184.758 |
1 |
2 |
| 8 |
33 |
Wade
Cunningham |
28.9817 |
183.840 |
2 |
2 |
| 9 |
24 |
Jeff
Simmons |
28.9975 |
183.740 |
2 |
2 |
| 10 |
4 |
Marty
Roth |
29.0423 |
183.457 |
1 |
2 |
| 11 |
3 |
Arie
Luyendyk Jr. |
29.4418 |
180.967 |
1 |
2 |
"I tell you
what, I think it was all the media work I did in Dayton
and Cincinnati yesterday that pushed me to the pole,"
joked Gregg. "I was worried about letting all those people
I'd talked to down, so I knew I had to qualify on the pole
to keep them from being disappointed! Seriously, my
engineer and I just talked a lot about the car and how
different the track felt earlier in the day from last
year. We made some changes to the car and they worked
great. I'm pretty happy to get the pole since I'll have
so many friends and family here this weekend and because
Sam Schmidt, my team owner, is going to have a lot of
guests at the track for his Day At The Races program.
Jaime and I got Sam a front row for his guests."
Camara had a
hard time removing the smile from his face to make way for
the slight bit of disappointment when he saw his teammate
had bested him for the pole position.
"We did a good
job adjusting the car in practice today, and I ran some
really good laps. I don't like when Travis goes out to
qualify after me because I always have to worry if he will
be faster. Today he was, so we'll be second. It should
be a good race. Kentucky is a fun track to drive," said
Camara.
Festa, the
19-year-old driver who will enter his second year at
Florida State University this fall, worked on some setup
changes with his crew throughout practice.
"We've been
making some changes to the car today to get the car to
grip better and still have good speed. Obviously, we have
some more things to do before race time tomorrow
afternoon. We'll talk about it and work on it some more
in tomorrow morning's warmup and we'll be ready for the
race," explained Festa.
Owner Sam
Schmidt admitted he was at least two-thirds satisfied with
today's results.
"We came here
knowing we had to make some improvements in our overall
team performance, it looks like we've done some good, but
I still want to see all three cars running well," smiled
Schmidt. "It's great that Travis can come back to
Kentucky, the track where he made his debut driving for me
last year, and turn out the same performance in
qualifying. We've got 67 laps of racing still ahead of us
on Saturday and as happy as I am to win the pole, I'd
still take a last place qualifying effort if it meant all
three of my cars finished the race up front."
Saturday's
67-lap race begins at 3:00 p.m. (EDT), and will be
televised on a tape-delayed basis at 5 p.m. (EDT), on
Thursday, August 18 on ESPN2.
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