Alex Gurney starts fourth in the #99 GAINSCO/Blackhawk Racing Riley-Pontiac he shares with Jon Fogarty, while Memo Gidley rounds out the top five in the #19 Playboy/Uniden Racing Crawford-Ford.
Friday practice pacesetters Christian Fittipaldi and Max Papis, meanwhile, could not better ninth spot for Cheever Racing in the short qualifying session, leaving them behind both the Wallace/ Leitzinger Howard-Boss Crawford and the title-chasing Pruett/ Diaz CompUSA Chip Ganassi Riley-Lexus. The top-seven qualifiers turned laps within one second of Braun's time.
Andrew Davis put his background as a Porsche Driving Experience instructor at Barber Motorsports Park to good use in GT class qualifying by placing the #73 NEC Porsche GT3 on pole. Davis turned a best lap of 1min 31.775secs to secure his first pole since the Brumos Porsche 250 at
Daytona last year.
"I work here at Barber, so I'm pretty familiar with the layout," he admitted, "It feels great to share this pole with Jim Tafel and everybody at Tafel Racing. The guys literally worked until the green flag dropped on qualifying to get our car out there. We had some issues yesterday afternoon and this morning, but they crew worked together and put a fast car our there."
Starting second in class will be Kelly Collins in the #64 TRG/iRise Pontiac GTO.R. Collins will be looking for his fourth victory of the season alongside Paul Edwards, but will have to fend off the challenge of TRG stable-mate Marc Bunting, who qualified the points-leading #65 Pontiac third. Along with co-driver Andy Lally, Bunting will also be going for a fourth class victory of the season, adding extra spice to the GT battle.
David Murry posted the fourth-quickest qualifying lap in the #80 Synergy Racing Porsche, while Leighton Reese qualified fifth in the #06 Banner Racing Chevrolet Corvette. There was disappointment for title-chasing pair Wolf Henzler and Robin Liddell, however, as they failed to record a qualifying time in the #72 NEC Porsche due to an engine change.
