Win a $100 NASCAR.com Gift Card, M&M’S Racing backpack and some M&M’S
The winner will receive one $100 NASCAR.com Gift Card, M&M’S Racing backpack (the backpack contains a M&M’S hat, ‘koozie’, two toy race cars and a pen) and some M&M’S.
Indy Lights: Sebastian Saavedra wins Pole for Grand Prix of Alabama
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[/media-credit]With a lap of one minute and 16 seconds, Sebastian Saavedra won the Sonoco Pole Award for the 45-lap Grand Prix of Alabama on April 1st on the 17-turn Barber Motorsports Park road course.
“It was a very tough qualifying session,” he says. “Very wet in a couple of places and you don’t want it to be wet. A very big thanks to the No. 27 guys. They did an amazing job. This car was unbelievably fast all through the weekend. It was also very fast last week in St. Pete. It feels very good to have our first pole of the season and we will move forward from here.”
Tristan Vautier will start in second, beside Saavedra, for his second consecutive front row start. He made his Firestone Indy Lights debut last week from the pole at St. Petersburg.
“I’m happy and frustrated at the same time,” Vautier says. “I’m happy because I feel like we made a big step from practice, and we improved the car a lot. The team and my engineer made the right calls for the car. I’m happy because I feel we could have had this pole, but I’m frustrated because with the red flag we didn’t get to use our last set of tires, we just put it on and then it was red, we just did a warmup lap. But you know, we took a risk in waiting longer and it didn’t work out, so great job from these guys at Andretti/AFS, they made the right call in qualifying and were strong from the start of practice here. So well deserved, and we’ll do our best to do it in the race.”
Carlos Munoz will start third for his career best start while Esteban Guerrieri starts fourth for his 16th consecutive top-five start, which is a series record.
There was one incident on the session involving Oliver Webb.
The Grand Prix of Alabama is set to take place on April 1st with the green flag dropped at 5pm EST. The race will be shown live on the NBC Sports Network.
Helio Castroneves Scores Pole Position at Barber Motorsports Park
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[/media-credit]Team Penske driver Helio Castroneves won the IZOD IndyCar Series pole for the Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama at Barber Motorsports Park for his first pole in more than a year. Last week’s race winner got the pole with a best time of one minute, 10 seconds during the Firestone Fast Six session.
“The AAA Team Penske crew did a great job, and it will keep us in good shape,” Castroneves says. “Unfortunately, we were the first ones out there because of no practice this morning. The red tires gave us a lot of bonus, so I apparently made it. We made some changes and that put us good for second qualifying. In the end, Will (Power) and some other competitors not making it was tough, but it is better to be lucky than good. (Strategist) John (Erickson), (race engineer) Ron (Ruzewski) and I were just going through the stuff and The Firestone red tires were great and have a lot of grip. The Firestone tires were able to give me Top 6 and thanks again Firestone.”
The last pole for Castroneves came at Motegi in 2010 as this marks the 37th pole of his career and the third consecutive pole at Barber for Penske.
Andretti Autorsport driver James Hinchcliffe qualified second for his career best start in IndyCar.
“Obviously a great start for us to be on the outside of the front row,” he says. “It’s my best start and it’s a great result after the way practice went yesterday and being rained out, then being fogged out this morning. We only had 14 dry laps coming into qualifying. We knew we had to take a little bit of a swing at it, and give it to the Andretti Autosport guys because that green Go Daddy guy was quick. As soon as we pulled out and we got into the Fast Six and we had only done I think one quick lap on those tires and two before the red came out.”
Target Chip Ganassi driver Scott Dixon qualified in third, followed by Mike Conway and Tony Kanaan.
Will Power scored the best lap of the session in round one for a record lap of one minute, 9.8529 seconds. He would transfer to round two via that lap, but didn’t get to round three and Firestone Fast Six, as he ended up in the ninth at the end of the season. Last year, Power won the event after starting on the pole.
“”It’s a pretty frustrating qualifying result,” he says. “Man, we had a great Verizon car today. We had a good first session and we were ready to fight for the pole. I know INDYCAR threw the red flag there but I’m not sure why they didn’t allow our fast lap. It’s definitely going to be tough starting ninth tomorrow, but we know we’ve got a fast car. We have to have a good start and be strong on the restarts and hopefully work our way up front.”
The Honda Indy Grand Prix of Alabama 90-lap event is set to take place on Sunday at 2p.m. ET and will be shown live on NBC Sports Network.
Matty’s Picks 2012 – Vol. 7 Martinsville Speedway – Goody’s Fast Relief 500 – April 1, 2012
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[/media-credit]Under the gun with a very important deadline this week, Matty’s Picks will be very brief and uneventful, much like last week’s Auto Club 400.
Last week was another dismal performance for me picking winners, much like this week’s winner pick’s start to the 2012 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series season. I picked Matt Kenseth as my winner pick last week because of the domination of the Ford FR9 engines early this season, but again I was let down. Kenseth finished the 112 lap sprint 17th, and I received zero points for my efforts.
My Dark Horse finished in the top-10 and without my stat book in front of me I can not tell you exactly how many times that has happened this year. I picked Martin Truex Jr. last week as my Dark Horse, but he is steadily working his way into the ranks of not qualifying as a Dark Horse. At any rate, he scored an 8th place finish last week, keeping him inside the top-5 in the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series points standings.
Martinsville Picks
Everyone knows the history of the paper-clip in Southern Virginia, so I don’t need to re-iterate how excited I am to watch all 500 laps tomorrow afternoon. It’s probably the only true short-track left on the circuit, and the race Sunday is surely going to be one of the more exciting stanzas of the season.
Winner Pick
He’s off to a slow start this season but I’m thinking his luck is about to turn around. Sitting in 25th place in NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Standings, Jeff Gordon needs to get his act together quickly as we’re almost a quarter of the way to the start of the 2012 Chase for the Sprint Cup. He’s been the guy to beat all weekend at Martinsville Speedway, winning NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Final Practice by two-tenths of a second. When you’re talking a flat short -track, two-tenths is an eternity. He’ll start 9th tomorrow, and in order for the Drive to End Hunger team to be in the big dance at the end of the season, Jeff Gordon has to turn his luck around soon.
Dark Horse Pick
This one might be a long shot this week, but in order to win big, you have to bet big. Kurt Busch is another guy that if he didn’t have bad luck this season, he wouldn’t have any at all. He’s starting way back in the field, and will need the combination of solid pit strategy, a good race car, and a bit of lady luck this weekend in Martinsville to come up with a solid finish. The paper-clip in Southern Virginia has not been the kindest of places for Busch historically, with an average finish of just 20.8. One of his 7 career short-track wins has come at Martinsville, but he’s got a tall task ahead of him if he’s to leave Old Dominion with a solid finish.
That’s it for this week, and until next time…You Stay Classy NASCAR NATION!
