By Austin Lawton, Staff Writer
For the fourth time in a row, Meyer Shank Racing will start from pole in an IMSA race, this time with the No. 60.
Tom Blomqvist put the GTP car on pole for the TireRack.com Battle on the Bricks, with a time of 1:14.569, just 0.041 seconds ahead of the No. 31 Action Express Racing Cadillac. Both Wayne Taylor Racing Cadillac’s, the No. 40 and No.10 and the No.6 Porshe Penske make up the top five overall and in GTP.
The No.60 MSR Acura posted the fastest speeds on Friday and Saturday practice and Blomqvist, who claimed his sixth career IMSA pole on Saturday, credits the development of the car and the effort from the crew, for the car’s speed.
“Ultimately, it’s kind of been an accumulation of things from past events,” Blomqvist said. “The new people we’ve got on the team. We’ve made good gains on our car, further understanding it, pushing it more to its limits, trying to get a better understanding of what it needs to go fast and being able to adapt better to other tracks. The team’s done a fantastic job. We hit the ground running this weekend. The car was great from the start and was able to convert in qualifying.
It wasn’t a super clean session. Kind of felt like I was in a bad spot on track, but nevertheless, I managed to ink that lap out and it was enough.”
For the rest of the classes in the race, The No. 2 United Autosport Oreca starts on pole in LMP2. Nick Boulle set a time of 1:17.846, just three tenths ahead of second. In GTD Pro, the No. 48 Paul Miller Racing BMW M4 GT3 EVO claimed pole with Max Hesse (1:23.259).
GTD sees the No. 27 Heart of Racing Aston Martin Vantage GT3 Evo on pole. Tom Gamble (1:23.088) put the car on pole, going two-tenths quicker than the BMW in GTD Pro.
There are 53 cars entered for the six-hour race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the MSR crew look to continue their good form on the season, as will the defending race winners in BMW M Team RLL. The duo of Jesse Krohn and Phillip Eng won the race last year, but Eng returns looking to defend his crown.
Eng won the last race GTP participated in, at Road America on August 3. MSR has won two of the last three IMSA races GTP has entered and looks to be favorites at IMS.