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| September 26, 2009 News |
| EKN Trackside: 2009 Mazda RoboPong 200 presented by Bridgestone - Qualifying Report |
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The first day of action completed at the New Castle Motorsports Park for the sixth running of the 2009 Mazda RoboPong 200 presented by Bridgestone. The popular facility in the New Castle, Indiana area ran roughly three-hours of practice with qualifying sessions taking place to line up the 47 teams for Sunday’s 200 lap event. All 47 teams will be vying for the $5k for the winning and will be chasing last year’s provisional winners of Jimmy Simpson and Evan Batt who scored the pole position for Sunday’s main event.
The day began with a wet track following Friday’s rain-soaked day. No rain fell throughout the day on Saturday however the track took time to dry out as the sun did not pop through the clouds until around noon. Pushing the schedule back, teams were still given about three hours of practice on a dry track before being closed to set up for qualifying. Split up into nine groups determined by the fastest practice lap for each team, the slow groups went out first with the fast groups ending the qualifying session
Following practice, the Comet Racing Engines/Arrow Karts team of Billy Lewis and CJ Lintner (Arrow/Parilla) led the way with a 1:06.069 as the track continued to gather rubber after being washed off by the rain. Lewis entered the race as the defending co-winner from last year as Lintner is the defending co-pole winner - the tandem was definitely the team to beat coming in.
Qualifying got interesting when the final two groups were the final karts to hit the track. With only a 1:06.6 as the mark, the eighth group hit the track hard. Three teams swapped the provisional pole each time by the strip with Simpson/Batt (Zanardi/Parilla) coming out with the fast lap of 1:05.858, edging out DFR/Supertune USA with Conor Daly behind the wheel and Bobby Wilson as his teammate. Their fast lap in a FA Kart/Rotax package was just 0.083-seconds off Simpson’s time. Vision Racing/Bryan Herta Autosports with Brandon Newey and James Davison (Arrow/Parilla) briefly held the top spot but settled for third with five karts left to hit the track.
 | Evan Batt and Jimmy Simpson will lead the 47 kart field to the start of the 2009 Mazda RoboPong 200 presented by Bridgestone
(Photo: DavidLeePhoto.com) |
The top-five karts from practice were the remaining teams to put in a qualifying run with three timed laps on the docket. Surprisingly, only the ComeKartSales.com with IndyCar’s Dan Wheldon behind the wheel of an Arrow/Parilla package, teamed up with Mark Dismore Jr., was the only entry to go below the 1:06 mark in the final group as they ended up third overall behind Simpson and Daly. Newey’s time was best for fourth overall with Lintner running a bit slower than their practice time to get into the fast-five.
The JD Byrider team (Colton Aldridge-Ron Peterson) ended up sixth overall from the final group in their Arrow/Parilla entry ahead of IndyCar’s Jay Howard in the Screaming Talent #0 Maranello-Parilla with Brit Joe Paterson. Eric Morrow and Indy Lights driver Martin Plowman put the Zanardi Kart-Parilla package eighth in the order with Vision Racing (Ed Carpenter/Nathan O’Rourke - Arrow/Parilla) and Matthew Codalata/Eric Bachelart (Margay/Parilla) completing the top-10.
For complete coverage of the event, visit the Official Event Page with links to the full qualifying order and the link to the Official Discussion Thread where you can view updates throughout the 200-lap event. |
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