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| September 04, 2005 News |
| EKN Trackside: Rock Island Grand Prix – Saturday Report |
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A beautiful clear day graced the area for practice and qualifying day for this year’s Rock Island Grand Prix in Rock Island, IL. This year’s entry numbers went over 400 for the first time in the Grand Prix history. A late start in the morning along with a few red flags incidents put the schedule behind but the RIGP crew continued to run things as quickly as possible.
Kyle Wiegand (GP/SwedeTech Pavesi) began his defense of the crown with a track record run during the King of the Streets qualifying session to earn himself the pole position for tomorrow’s main event. Former King Alan Rudolph (RBI/Hi-Tech TM) was also quick with an outside pole run ahead of PTK driver J.J. McTernan (Tony Kart/Vortex). Another former King of the Streets winner, Superkarts! USA’s Joe Janowski (GP/SwedeTech Pavesi) will start tomorrow fourth with Troy Hottmann, who stopped short during his session when he made contact with the outside TechPro coming out of turn five, rounding out the top five.
Wiegand would later run quicker during the Stars of Karting-CIK ICC division with another track record. Rudolph would again qualify second with Josh Schreiber improving to a third starting spot for the category.
Sunday will begin with warm-up sessions for all classes along with four last chance qualifiers for the King of the Streets, TaG Senior, TaG Masters, and 2-Cycle Super Sportsman. EKN will continue to update in the forums throughout the day.
PIT NOTES
 | Kyle Wiegand is on pace to defend is King of the Streets crown as well as earn a double vicotry this weekend
(Photo: Super Kart Illustrated) |
Fast lap records have was the story during qualifying as nearly every class had a new fast lap for their category. Wiegand was able to break his own track record during the King of the Streets qualifying and then again in the Stars of Karting ICC division with 31.970, the only driver to break the 32 second mark. RIGP legend Gary Lawson will start three classes from the pole as he took both 4-Cycle Medium and Heavy along with 2-Cycle Senior Sportsman. Tim Goettsch earned was the quickest in two different divisions, the Yamaha Heavy and 2-Cycle Super Sportsman classes.
The SKI GP team hit the track this weekend for the first time this year, as they did last year switching to different rides this year. SKI Editor in Chief Rob Howden has teamed up with RBI Racing for the weekend. With the short amount of practice time, the qualifying session was the first session Howden was able to put the power down. Howden will start 20th while looking to drop a few seconds off his lap times. SKI Editor Tim Blaney is running with the BTK Motorsports group and is in shape to bring home some real cash-money after Sunday’s final. With the help of SpeedTech’s Shane Shipley and the crew at BTK, Blaney improved every session and managed to qualify ninth on the last lap of the qualifying session in TaG Masters aboard his Arrow/Rotax machine.
PG Racing brought out the red carpet for all 23 of his drivers under the massive Intrepid tent, all with their personal area that included a table, new embroider kart cover, and a newly designed decal kit.
Phil Giebler is making his first RIGP of his career and is joining the long list of Ironman competitors. The recently crowned Stars of Karting ICA Eastern Division champion is running in four of the fastest groups this weekend, including King of the Streets, Stars ICC & ICA, and TaG Senior. |
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