Rennsport One’s Stevan McAleer will start on pole in the Saturday’s (Aug. 24) IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge Virginia Is For Racing Lovers Grand Prix at VIRginia International Raceway. McAleer won the pole with a lap at 104.522 mph, a new Grand Sport official track record.
McAleer won the pole by .454 seconds over Motorsports In Action’s Jesse Lazare in the sole McLaren on the grid. Kellymoss with Riley’s Michael McCarthy will start in third, then TeamTGM’s Paul Holton. JMF Motorsports’ Michai Stephens was fifth.
Qualifying ended up being an extension of the rest of the weekend to this point. McAleer had been fastest in both practice sessions on Friday in his Porsche.
However, he wasn’t the fastest early on. That driver that was McCarthy, who traded quick laps with Stephens.
McAleer put his Porsche on top with his second lap at full speed at 104.012 mph. He would not be overtaken from that point on. The very next lap saw him lower his time by more than a half-second, which would have been good enough for the pole. After a lap designed to protect his tires, McAleer lowered his time again.
There were 21 teams entered originally in Grand Sport, but that number is now down to 20. The No. 92 BMW for Random Vandals Racing has been withdrawn.
Team owner Paul Sparta was injured in a first-lap crash in Pirelli GT4 America SprintX Race No. 1 at Road America last weekend when he T-boned the OnlyFans Racing/P1 Groupe Mercedes of Matt Bell.
Sparta will be out for the remainder of both the IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge and Pirelli GT4 America SprintX seasons. After this weekend, both will have two weekends to go.
In TCR, it was almost all Hyundai, all the time. KMW Motorsports with TMR Engineering’s Dr. William Tally set the first lap at speed in his Alfa Romeo. From there on, it was a battle between multiple Hyundai Elantra N TCRs.
Morgan Burkhard, Preston Brown and Mark Wilkins traded quick times in their Elantras. In time, the pace quickened. The best lap in practice in practice was never broached in the session, but times dropped through the 117 and 116-second brackets.
With the long acceleration zones at VIR, drafting did play a role to an extent. Robert Wickens put himself on top with a little less than four minutes remaining. Just behind Wickens was Bryson Morris, fresh off of a Pro-Am victory in Sunday’s Fanatec GT World Challenge America powered by AWS race at Road America.
Using Wickens’…
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