Dalziel captures pole for 24-hour race at Daytona
January 26, 2012
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP)—Ryan Dalziel’s qualifying performance wassomewhat surprising.
He knew his car was fast, but given that the team had just two weeks to tuneit and then failed to turn a lap in the first practice session because of enginefailure, sitting on the pole was hardly expected.
Nonetheless, Dalziel bested Max Angelelli, Chip Ganassi’s two-car powerhouseteam and IndyCar regular Ryan Hunter-Reay on the road course at DaytonaInternational Speedway.
Dalziel turned a fast lap of 1 minute, 41.119 seconds in Thursday’squalifying session. He will lead the field to the green flag for the 50thrunning of the around-the-clock event. The race begins Saturday and ends Sunday.
“To get the pole is very rewarding, but it’s a long race,” said Dalziel,who drives for Starworks Motorsport. “The pole doesn’t mean too much. It provesto us that we have a fast car, but we already knew we had a reliable car and hada great crew.”
Angelelli will be on the outside pole. Scott Dixon will start third in oneof Ganassi’s two entries.
Ganassi’s other car, the one driven primarily by two-time defending serieschampions Scott Pruett and Memo Rojas, will start near the back of the class.The car blew an engine in practice and failed to make a qualifying lap in the DPclass.
Hunter-Reay qualified ninth after landing a last-minute deal to driveanother car for Starworks. It looked as if Hunter-Reay, who had been slated todrive with IndyCar regulars Tony Kanaan and E.J. Viso, would miss the eventafter funding fell through. But team owner Peter Baron asked Hunter-Reay to stepinto another ride.
Andrew Davis topped qualifying in the GT class, edging Jeff Segal and NASCARrookie of the year Andy Lally.
The GT class could have as many as 46 cars in the starting lineup. The DPclass is considerably smaller at 14, and Dalziel believes his team can competewith anyone.
Dalziel gained confidence last September when he and teammate EnzoPotolicchio won the Grand-Am finale in Lexington, Ohio, giving StarworksMotorsport its third victory in seven seasons.
“Last year, we deserved to get more results than we did,” Dalziel said.“I think sometimes the underdogs are not expected to beat the powerhouse teams.But what’s happened with Starworks the past four or five months is we’ve triedto create a powerhouse team. I think we’ve hired all the right people and puttogether an unbelievable car.
“I think the (No. 
car is going to be a contender not only this weekend,but it’s going to be a contender for every race this year. I don’t think we havea weak link in our chain. I really am pretty excited about this.”
Starworks got the new Ford Riley chassis in December, had the body fitted inJanuary and only got an hour of seat time before qualifying.
“I think everybody’s a little bit unsure what to expect at this point,”Dalziel said. “I’m sure we’re going to find out pretty quickly when we getstarted here. It’ll be interesting to see if everybody really did run flatout.”
Angelelli, who has finished second in the series the past two years, wasdisappointed with his qualifying effort.
“I wasn’t expecting ending in P2,” he said. “I still feel our car isreally good, is really fast. I still feel for the 24 hour, we’ll be the car tobeat.”
Like Dalziel, Angelelli also isn’t sure what to expect with so many new carsmaking their Grand-Am debut.
“We have no idea what’s going to happen or what could happen,” Angelellisaid. “We’ve never run longer than one hour and we’re going to have another 23to go. So I’m expecting issues for everybody. I can’t believe we’ll see carsfinishing the race without an issue.”
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