Written by: Grand-Am Communications
Date: October 9, 2009

Despite having the Daytona Prototype championship on the line between three teams, Jon Fogarty planned to approach Saturday’s season-ending Grand Prix of Miami like any other event on the Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series presented by Crown Royal Cask No. 16 circuit.

Fogarty takes the pole at Homestead (Credit: Grand-Am)

In typical fashion, Fogarty captured his fifth consecutive pole – and sixth in seven races – to lead the field in the No. 99 GAINSCO/Bob Stallings Racing Pontiac Riley co-driven by Alex Gurney. The two and a half hour race will take the green flag shortly after 1 p.m. ET Saturday (SPEED, live).

Fogarty broke David Donohue’s year-old mark with a lap of 1:12.879 (113.612 mph). He will be joined on the front row by Brian Frisselle, who ran a lap of 1:13.163 (113.171 mph) in the No. 10 SunTrust Racing Ford Dallara co-driven by Max Angelelli.

Fogarty and Gurney enter the finale with an eight point lead (309-301) over Frisselle and Angelelli, with seventh-fastest qualifier Memo Rojas and Scott Pruett another two points back.

“There is no margin in this series, and you can’t leave anything to chance or on the table,” said Fogarty, who shared the 2007 Daytona Prototype title with Gurney. “It’s so competitive and aggressive out there that we’ve got to operate this way all season long, and that’s the zone we’re comfortable in. The best thing we could do this weekend is to continue with that high level of intensity and aggression. That’s what I did in qualifying, and it paid off.”

Romain Dumas qualified third-fastest with a lap of 1:13.237 (113.057 mph) in the No. 12 Penske Racing/Verizon Wireless Porsche Riley. He will be joined on the second row by Mark Wilkins, 1:13.305 (mph) in the No.61 AIM Autosport Ford Riley co-driven by Burt Frisselle.

Qualifying on the third row were Ryan Hunter-Reay, 1:13.421 in the No. 95 Supercar Life Racing BMW Riley shared by Scott Tucker, and Darren Law, 1:13.745 (mph) in the No. 58 Brumos Porsche Riley co-driven by Donohue.

Ham Captures Fifth Acxiom GT Pole

Nick Ham captured his fifth Acxiom GT pole of the season, running a lap of 1:18:848 (105.012 mph) in the No. 70 SpeedSource/Castrol Syntec Mazda RX-8 co-driven by Sylvain Tremblay. He will be joined on the front row by Paul Edwards, who ran a lap of 1:19.227 (104.510 mph) in the No. 07 Team Drinkin’ Mate Pontiac GXP.R.

“I knew we had a good shot, because we had a fast car all weekend,” said Ham. “We’ve struggled like everybody else this weekend with our setup, but on new tires, the car is fantastic. We made a few changes this morning that helped a bit, and then I made a sway bar adjustment during the qualifying session that got us the pole.”

Kelly Collins, who co-drives with Edwards, is the only driver who can take the GT title from Farnbacher Loles Porsche drivers Leh Keen and Dirk Werner. The drivers of the No. 87 Porsche GT3 need to each drive 30 minutes to share the title, while Collins needs to finish first or second and the Porsche fail to complete 30 minutes. Keen qualified fifth with a lap of 1:19/812 (103.744 mph).

Andrew Davis qualified third in the No. 57 Stevenson Motorsports/BryanMark Financial Pontiac GXP.R co-driven by Robin Liddell, 1:19.554 (104.080 mph). He will be joined on the second row by Jeff Segal, 1:19.799 (103.781 mph) in the No. 69 SpeedSource/FXDD Mazda RX-8 co-driver by Emil Assentato.

Weekend festivities also include a pre-race Fan Walk and autograph session at noon ET Saturday, and the awarding of a special Pirelli edition Ford Flex designed by hot rod legend Chip Foose to conclude a season-long contest held in conjunction with SPEED. Foose will give keys to 10 contest winners Saturday at 11 a.m. at the Pirelli transporter, with one of them driving away in the one-of-a-kind vehicle.

Practice for the Grand Prix of Miami begins at 2 p.m. ET on Thursday, with qualifying at 2:45 p.m. Friday. The two-hour, 30-minute race takes the green flag at 1 p.m. ET Saturday (SPEED, live), followed by the IndyCar Series season finale.

The 2009 Rolex Champions Banquet presented by SunTrust will be held at 6 p.m. Monday, Oct. 12, at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood. The public is invited for the crowning of the champions in both the Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series presented by Crown Royal Cask No. 16 and the Grand-Am KONI Sports Car Challenge. For ticket information, visit grand-am.com/banquet.