Bowmanville, Ontario (11 July 2014) – Just two weeks after scoring a second IMSA Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge victory of the season, the No. 6 Stevenson Motorsports Camaro Z/28.R was back in fast form on Friday at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park as Andrew Davis earned the IMSA Total Lubricants pole with the Camaro Z/28.R. Davis’ quick lap time of 1:27.591-seconds secured the pole position and he will lead the combined class field of 47 cars to the green flag on Saturday.
The brother No. 9 Stevenson Motorsports Camaro Z/28.R was also a strong presence in the 15-minute qualifying session and took third on the grid for Saturday’s 2.5-hour race, which will be broadcast live via www.imsa.com.
“Our Stevenson Camaro was working really well; I was happy with it,” said Davis, who will share the driving duties with Robin Liddell. “The changes we made leading into qualifying were great. I’m just so proud of the team; they’ve worked so hard. I’ve worked really hard as well and to get this pole for the new Camaro Z/28.R and the first pole for the Stevenson program with this new car. I’m excited and looking forward to tomorrow’s race.”
After setting a lap that was good for the provisional pole midway through the session, IMSA officials deemed that Davis had exceeded track limits and took the time away, setting the stage for Davis to have to dig even deeper for an even faster lap.
“Unfortunately I think in Turn 2 I must have been pretty close (to the lines); I thought I was still on but it must have been too close for comfort as far as the officials were concerned so they took that lap away,” said Davis. “So I had to put my head down and do another one. Luckily I had built that gap so I knew I’d have two laps to do it in – because that’s all the team was going to give me anyway. So thankfully we were able to put the second lap in there and it was even a little quicker.”
“Our cars especially have been really struggling on tires after about four or five laps,” said team manager Mike Johnson. “And then we get into that situation where it’s just kind of a handful. So we knew we had to do it (set a lap time) quick and early. Starting the session from the pit box was nice because we could see what the other guys were doing. And Andrew just knocked out a huge lap. I’m really happy for the team. To come off a win at Watkins Glen and back it up with a pole and having the No. 9 car right there in third place, it’s a great place to start the weekend. For us, we know that we need to have track position to stay up front and the best way to do that is to start from the front.”
The No. 9 Camaro will start directly behind the pole-winning car after traffic thwarted Bell’s first fast lap flyer, so like Davis, he had to match the effort with another big lap.
“My first lap, which was going to be my hot lap, I had to throw it away,” said Bell, who will open the race before turning the car over to Andy Lally. “Second lap, I wasn’t able to put it together. Third lap, tires are starting to fall off and we had to call it. Third is not bad, but when you know what you have and you don’t get to show it, when you know these two cars could be 1-2, it’s frustrating. I was able to squeeze one fast lap through real quick but third was the best I could do before the tires were falling off. We’re tweaking things on the car, trying to get it to work well over a stint. We haven’t had much time to tweak in much of the one-lap stuff. But I think the car is going to be awesome tomorrow for the race. We’re going to be able to go the long run and still be good.”
The seventh round of the IMSA Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge action is set to go green Saturday at 1:15 PM (ET). The race will be streamed via a live video feed onwww.imsa.com. Live timing and scoring can also be found at www.imsa.com.
