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| October 09, 2010 News |
| EKN Trackside: 2010 RoboPong 200 presented by Bridgestone - Qualifying Report |
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The 2010 RoboPong 200 presented by Bridgestone officially got underway Saturday with the first day of action into the books at the New Castle Motorsports Park in Indiana. Following four hours of official practice, 42 teams were given three laps to post their fastest time to line them up for Sunday 200-lap main event and a chance at $5,000 winner paycheck. When the final checkered flag fell on the day, it was Evan Batt and Jimmy Simpson who were once again leading the field to the green flag.
The weather was perfect on the day and certainly unlike normal temperatures in October with everyone wearing shorts and the sun shining down from a clear blue sky. Teams were given four hours of practice from 10am to 2pm with the final two hours set as the timed practice session to line up the field for 10 groups of qualifying. Not much excitement went on during the warm-up laps. A few teams experience engine issues while many of the front runners made the switch from practice to race powerplants in preparation for the qualifying runs.
Following practice, the Motorama Kart Parts team of Jay Howard and Bill McLaughlin Jr. held the fast lap with a 1:05.544, three tenths quicker than last year’s pole time. Some of the usual suspects were near the top of the order with 12 teams under the 1:06-mark, including the Batt-Simpson duo in the fifth spot.
Once the qualifying began at 3:30pm, the times of the early groups were a bit off their practice times, showing the track and bolting on new Bridgestone caught some of the teams off-guard. It was in Group 5 when the JD Byrider team (Ron Peterson-Colton Aldridge) overcame engine issues in practice to post the provisional pole at the time and one of the first teams to better their practice times. That continued on into Group 6 with team HAAS (Troy Pew-Michael Busse-Brandon Cross). The moved to the provisional pole, just a tenth short of breaking the 1:06 mark but also bettering their practice laps.
 | Batt-Simpson Racing secured their second straight pole position for the RoboPong 200 event
(Photo: DavidLeePhoto.com) |
HAAS held the spot until Group 8 when the Billy Lewis/BJ Anderson entry dipped into the 1:05’s with a 1:05.943. Lewis, the 2008 co-winner, kept the same pace as their practice laps to hold the provisional pole position until Group 9 when Batt-Simpson hit the track. On their second timed circuit, Simpson posted the quickest lap thus far and bettered that on the final lap to lock in a 1:05.683. Defending race winner Vision Racing (Ed Carpenter-Nathan O’Rourke) was in the same group. After an opening lap spin by O’Rourke behind the wheel, he regained his composure to end up fifth at that time. One team with eyes on it was the Team Robinade (Conor Daly-Graham Rahal). With Daly behind the wheel and among the quickest in practice, they ended the Group 9 session in second spot with four more teams to take to the track. Though the four teams in the final group challenged for the top spot, all four came up short as Simpson’s time withstood to help them earn their second straight pole award. Free Spirit (Robby Seward-Jacob Knueven) was best in the final group to end up second overall. After finishing fifth last year, the two young drivers certainly will be among the favorites for Sunday’s main event.
For their efforts, the top two received $200 and $100 respectively thanks to Average Joe’s Sports Bar for to award the ‘Average Joe’s Front Row’. Former winners Mark Dismore Jr. and Dan Wheldon (CometKartSales.com) ended up third in the order - same position as they stood in practice and will start alongside Team Robinade. Lewis-Anderson fell to fifth while MKP missed the jetting in their qualifying effort to end up sixth. Two new young-guns to the event - Tristan Nunez and Thomas Silva (Dixon Racing) ran similar to their practice time to start inside row 4 next to the defending race winners Vision Racing. KartSport Team Arrow Racing (Brandon Jones-Eric Jones) sat sixth after practice and fell to ninth with a bit of a miss on their powerplant and will start alongside team HAAS - who includes Michael Busse that finished second in last year’s race.
For complete coverage of the event, visit the Official Event Page with links to the full qualifying order and photo grid. Be sure to follow the Official Discussion Thread where you can view updates throughout the 200-lap event. |
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