Watkins Glen, N. Y. ? Alex Gurney captured the pole position for Saturday?s Sahlen?s Six Hours of the Glen, the sixth Daytona Prototype race of the Rolex Series season. The flashy second-generation driver toured the 3.4-mile, 11-turn course at a speed of 117.831 miles per hour. He was the fastest driver throughout the 15-minute qualifying session.
Gurney co-drives the GAINSCO Bob Stallings Racing Pontiac Riley with Jon Fogarty. He earned his fifth series pole position and his second of the season. Fogarty has secured the fast-qualifying honors three times, and the duo has started from the front row in every race in 2007.
?Our car works very well here and we love coming here,? Gurney said of his second-consecutive pole position at The Glen. ?We have an amazing car, and I got the pole position on the first lap with a nice clean lap. Our doing well represents a combination of things, including the work of our engineer and the continuity between Jon (Fogarty) and me. The two of us just keep scraping everything together.?
Scott Pruett qualified for the outside of the front row with a speed of 117.308 mph. ?The GAINSCO car has set the pace all season, but I think our car is very good on long runs. We stretch our legs in the long races like this one.?
He and Memo Rojas drive TELMEX Chip Ganassi with Felix Sabates Lexus Riley.
Patrick Long put his Alex Job Racing Ruby Tuesday Porsche Crawford into the third starting position, and he will be joined in the second row by the hard-charging Max Angelelli in the SunTrust Racing Pontiac Riley.
Fifth and sixth fastest qualifiers were teenager Colin Braun and Nic Jonsson in a pair of Krohn Racing Pontiac Rileys.
Bill Auberlen and Tomas Enge were the seventh and eighth fastest drivers with Oswaldo Negri Jr. and Michael Valiante rounding out the top-10 qualifiers.
Eighteen Daytona Prototypes took qualification runs and three others are expected to join the field for Saturday?s race.
In GT class action, Paul Edwards topped Wolf Henzler in the closing minutes of qualifying to gain the class pole position. Edwards co-drives a Banner Engineering Pontiac GXP.R with Kelly Collins. In winning his first pole position of the season, Edwards toured the course at a speed of 107.535 mph, which broke the standard set by Auberlen in 2004.
Henzler was second fastest in a Tafel Racing Porsche GT3 Cup entry with Dirk Werner third in a Farnbacher Loles Motorsports Porsche GT3 Cup car.
Twenty-four GT cars are expected to take the green flag Saturday at 11 a.m. for the seventh GT race of the season.
