Lexington, Ohio (Aug 5, 2011) – K-PAX Racing, the World Challenge GT Manufacturers’ and Drivers’ champion in 2010, enjoyed a solid day of qualifying at round seven of the Pirelli World Challenge Championship at Mid Ohio, with three out of the four of the teams cars qualifying in the top three in both the GT and Touring Car classes.
The story of the day for the team was Aaron Povoledo’s stellar run for pole in his Volvo C30 Touring Car in the first qualifying session of the weekend. Povoledo qualified with a time of 1:35.00 to snatch the pole from second placed Lawson Aschenbach by over 8 tenths of a second. More importantly Povoledo’s pole earns 1 point for Volvo in the battle for the Manufacturers Championship in Touring Car. While Povoledo was beyond thrilled with his effort, he also understands that it took more than one person to make this result possible.
“I’m just over the moon that we were able to put this car on pole again. It was an all around huge team effort. I think that the work that the guys did back at the shop during the break made all of the difference. They gave me a car that I was able to drive really hard but really precisely, and that’s what made the difference. I’m really looking forward to the race tomorrow.”
Overcoming some difficulties early in the session Robb Holland managed to put his Volvo C30 up into third place on the very last lap. Holland’s was a little disappointed with his time of 1:36.14 and felt that his C30 had more in it then he was able to show.
“We got blocked on our first flying lap by a few cars that passed under the double yellow. I was unable to get my brake pads bedded in properly and they glazed up and it took until the last lap of the session to get them working right. I’m really looking forward to the race tomorrow because, as my teammate has shown, there is a lot more left in these C30’s and I’m confident that we’ll put in a good show for all of the Volvo fans here this weekend.”
On the GT side of things the story was much the same with Alex Figge, in only his second qualifying effort in the series, doing an impressive job by putting his Volvo S60 GT on the second row of the grid in position 3. In setting a time of 1:24.336 that was only 4 tenths of a second off of pole, Figge was looking forward to being able to put pressure on the competition in tomorrows race.
“It was a good qualifying session. Much shorter than the ones I was used to in ALMS and Champ Car. I was a little nervous at first but I was able to get focused and put in a lap that was good enough for P3 and very much in range of the top two. I’m pretty satisfied with my effort and the team did a great job with the set up and I’m confident that we can run strong in the race tomorrow.”
The only sour note struck in today’s efforts by the K-PAX Racing team was that reigning series champion, Randy Pobst, was unable to put in a lap during qualifying due to an undiagnosed issue with his car. The team plans on working hard through the night in order to sort out the problem and get Pobst back on track in time for tomorrows race.
In attendance this weekend is Volvo acting President, John Maloney, who was impressed with the strong results that the K-PAX Racing Volvo’s produced.
“It was a great day of qualifying today. To start the second half of the season with a first and third in Touring Car and third in GT is fantastic. The team obviously worked hard during the hiatus and made some good improvements to both the C30’s and S60’s and we’re running at the front and looking for more good things tomorrow in the race.”
K-PAX Racing Media
mediainfo@kpaxracing.com
