SONOMA, Calif. (July 16, 2005) –
Driving the No. 28 LG Pro Long Tube Header Chevrolet Corvette
C6, Lou Gigliotti, of Dallas, Texas, set a new qualifying
record with a time of 1:39.581 (91.463 mph) and earned his
second-consecutive SCCA Pro Racing SPEED World Challenge GT
pole position Saturday morning for this afternoon’s race at
the Infineon Grand Prix of Sonoma Presented by Ravenswood
Winery, Round Seven of the 2005 SPEED GT Championship.
SPEED GT practice leader Leighton Reese, of
Minnetonka, Minn., completed the all-Corvette front row by
qualifying second in the No. 6 Banner Engineering Chevrolet
Corvette C6, 0.4-sec. off Gigliotti’s pace. Wolf Henzler, of
Nurtingen, Germany, was third in the No. 55 Applied
Materials/Farnbacher Loles Porsche 911 Cup.
The pole
was the second in as many events for Gigliotti, who also took
the top spot into last round’s SPEED GT race at Lime Rock
Park. He wound up seventh in that race after an oil-induced
spin, and said that if he could avoid another instance like
that, he liked his chances in Saturday’s race.
“Now we
just have to carry it through. No bad luck, no parts from
other cars,” Gigliotti said. “The car is good. We’ve always
been good here, so we’ve just got to put together a good,
solid race. If we can get a good start and lead, I think we
can control the race.
“This track is really hard to
pass on except at turns seven and eleven. But, we’re good
coming out of six, which takes care of seven, and we’re good
out of ten, which takes care of eleven.”
James
Sofronas, of Newport Beach, Calif., qualified fourth in the
No. 14 Greek Brothers Rcg/GMG/Tecmark Porsche 911 Cup, and
Tony Gaples, of Libertyville, Ill., completed the top five in
the No. 34 Kleinschmidt Inc./Blackdog Racing Corvette C6.
The 25-lap race is scheduled to begin at 1:05 p.m.
Saturday afternoon and will be broadcast Sunday, July 17, on
SPEED Channel at 10:30 a.m. All times are Pacific.
To
follow Saturday’s race via live timing and scoring, or for
other information, visit www.world-challenge.com.
