While many of the names on the entry list changed places several times during the on-track sessions prior to Sunday's Atlantic Championship season-opener, Jonathan Bomarito remained a fixture at the top of the Long Beach timesheets.
The Mathiasen Motorsports man continued that trend in Saturday's final qualifying session, claiming pole position for the Imperial Capital Bank Atlantic Challenge in the #26 entry.
“It's a long race tomorrow and, in a 50-minute race, a lot can happen," he said, looking forward to Sunday's event, "But we're constantly making progress with the car. I think we're a little bit stronger in the morning than we are in the afternoon, so racing at ten or so tomorrow morning will play into our hands.”
Starting a career-best second in the #34 Newman Wachs Racing machine will be the only woman in the field, Simona de Silvestro. The Swiss racer turned in a lap of 1min 16.089secs to easily better her previous best Atlantic qualifying result of sixth, secured at Mont-Tremblant last year.
“It has been a really tough weekend, especially yesterday,” de Silvestro said, “We struggled a lot and, in the off-season, we didn't get all the days we wanted to. But we finally got it in qualifying and that's where it counts, so I'm pretty happy.”
American driver Carl Skerlong qualified third for Pacific Coast Motorsports, to equal his previous best performance, but is still seeking his first career Atlantic race victory.
“It's been a weird off-season, as we all know, and I really owe it all to the team for getting me out here," he said, "It's been a tough weekend too. There have been a lot of different names at the top of the charts, and thankfully we were one of them when it counted.
"I definitely think we had the speed to put it up front, but we had a little incident on the last lap with some blocking. That's racing and, overall, I'm glad to be in the top three going into the race tomorrow.”
![Jonathan Bomarito will join Sierra Sierra Enterprises for the 2008 Champ Car Atlantic series [pic credit: Champ Car Atlantic]](http://pix.crash.net/thumbs/401311.jpg)
