Five Mazda drivers on pole for National Championship races.
The grids are set for the 2014 SCCA National Championship Runoffs and its 24 races to crown champions in 27 different classes. Five Mazda drivers will be starting their respective races at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca from pole. Racing begins at 8:30 a.m. Pacific, and live timing and scoring and race notes, along with the SpeedcastTV feed, will be available at www.scca.com/sccalive.
Mark Drennan has led Spec Miata in each of the previous qualifying sessions, but he wasn’t the quickest driver on Thursday. That was Andrew Carbonell. However, Drennan’s time from Wednesday held up, as did second-fast qualifier Kyle Kaiser’s. Carbonell’s fast time on Thursday did allow him to move up four positions on the grid, and he’ll line up third with Brian Ghidinelli next to him on the outside of the second row. The Spec Miata race is scheduled for 11:30 a.m. Pacific.
While the general feeling was that afternoon sessions would generally be slower than morning sessions, that proved not to be the case in F Production, unfortunately for Eric Prill. While he found almost a full second to go even faster than his Wednesday time, so did a competitor, and Prill will be starting from the outside pole.
The top six qualifiers in E Production were Mazdas, a mix of Miatas with an RX-7 and an MX-5 thrown in. Favorite Matt Reynolds, after trailing Jim Daniels for the first two qualifying sessions, nabbed the pole with a new track record – Daniels was also under the track record. Unfortunately it appears third qualifier Jesse Prather may not make the race in his MX-5 due to an engine issue. Fourth through sixth are Josh Carroll (RX-7), Aaron Downey (Miata) and three-time EP National Champion Jon Brakke (Miata).
In Formula Mazda, Alan McCallum slipped from first to third in the final qualifying session. Southern Californian Mike Anderson took the top spot, and defending champion Darryl Wills will start on the outside of the front row.
Daniel Bender and Tom Wickersham had been fighting it out for the top starting spot in Touring 4 in their MX-5s. Then along came Izzy Sanchez and his RX-8, who jumped form fifth to first. Bender will start second, and Wickerhsam will be right behind Sanchez in the second row. Almost every driver in the class went faster in Thursday’s final session.
Defending champion and favorite Michael Mallinen was sitting on top of the charts in Formula Atlantic with his Swift 016a Mazda, but another Mazda-powered driver, Conner Kearby, lowered the qualifying time on Thursday to take the pole position for race that will run last at the 2014 SCCA National Championship Runoffs on Sunday afternoon.
