Braselton, Ga. (2 October 2014) – Stevenson Motorsports captured its third Total Lubricants Pole Award of the 2014 IMSA Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge season on Thursday when Andrew Davis drove the No. 6 Stevenson Motorsports Camaro Z/28.R to a lap of 1:31.647-seconds to take the first spot on the grid for Friday’s 2.5-hour race at Road Atlanta.
Davis, who calls Atlanta home, knows the 2.54-mile Georgia road course well and used that to his advantage. The front row starting position is a welcome result for Davis and co-driver Liddell who are pursuing the IMSA Championship title in Friday’s race. The two currently sit five points out of the championship lead and will look to convert the strong starting position into a positive performance on Friday.
“I just want to thank the Stevenson Motorsports guys,” said Davis. “They did a great job; Pratt and Miller; Chevrolet; everyone for all their support. We really had our Camaro Z/28.R dialed in for qualifying. We struggled a bit earlier on in the weekend, but this team is just so professional. We put our heads down, worked together – Robin Liddell, Andy Ramsey and I all sat down and figured out how to find some time in the car, and we did it. One lap was all we needed, so it was good.”
Matt Bell qualifed the No. 9 Camaro Z/28.R not far behind in fourth during the abbreviated qualifying session which saw just two green flag laps due to a long red flag.
“We’re still kind of struggling with some handling issues – we’ve tried the same set up as the No. 6, we’ve tried the completely opposite set up to the No. 6 and we’re still running into some issues with our car,” said Bell who will open the race from outside the second row. “We’re going to keep digging, look over data overnight, and work toward finding a solution prior to tomorrow’s race. Our goal in the race though is to help the No. 6 claim the championship. Right now they are in a perfect spot because they are starting first and their nearest contender for the title made a bad gamble in qualifying and is starting pretty far down the field. We’re right where we need to be. We’ll play defense and hopefully Andrew (Davis) and Robin (Liddell) will get to the checkered flag first.”
With rain in the forecast for Friday’s race, things could get interesting as different strategies come to fruition and the championship fight comes down to the final race.
“We haven’t been very fast in the heat but we have been really good on the first lap with the tires,” said Team Manager Mike Johnson. “We had a little bit of cloud cover this afternoon during qualifying and Andrew (Davis) just put down an amazing lap! He knew exactly what he needed to do and he did it. The championship fight is coming down to this last race and the pressure is on. And Andrew performed as he’s expected to. On top of that, the No. 46 was trying to do a different strategy with their tires and the red flag that stopped the qualifying session came out probably 100 feet before they crossed the start/finish line which nullified their lap. They didn’t have a lap for pole but they were probably within the top-five so we were obviously watching them closely. As it turns out, with us starting first and them starting at the back is really an ideal situation. Of course, the last time we started last we ended up on the podium! So you can’t count on anything at this point. We don’t know what the weather is going to be like either but that’s a factor we can’t control. Right now, we’ve put ourselves in the best position we could hope for and we have to go out there tomorrow and fight for the win.”
Hopes are high for Stevenson Motorsports heading into the season-finale race after having run in championship contention all year long. The Road Atlanta event will begin at 1:15 PM ET and will be streamed LIVE on IMSA.com.
The race will be televised on FOX Sports 1 on Sunday, October 12 at 12:00 PM ET.
