Quebec racer Mikael Grenier qualified on the pole for tonight's Round 4 of the 2010 Star Mazda Championship presented by Goodyear – the 'Night Before the 500 at O'Reilly Raceway Park - with a lap of 20.665sec. (119.356 mph) in his No. 17 Andersen Racing / Slow Cow / April Super Flow / NAPA Auto Parts / HS Telecom / Desharnais Mazda. The entire 13-car field qualified within half a second of each other.
The 125-lap, 45-minute race is scheduled to take the green flag at 8:10 pm ET and the event will be live on streaming video available at IndyCar.com, StarMazda.com and USF2000.com. This race is particularly significant as a major element of the new Indy Racing League "Road to Indy" program, and the winner will be interviewed in Victory Lane at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway prior to the start of the Indy 500.
"We've been running second to fourth in practice and were making good adjustments to the car and knew that we had a good car for qualifying," said Grenier, who is third in the championship battle coming off a podium finish in Round 3 at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca last weekend. "It's really good to be on the pole here and I'm comfortable to have an experienced guy like Conor Daly next to me for the start. There will be a big crowd here tonight, and a lot of people from the IRL because of the Road to Indy program, and a lot of my sponsors. So tonight my plan is to really focus on being smooth and not making any mistakes. The Andersen Racing team has given me a very good car and now it's up to me."
Starting second will be the current championship points leader and Indianapolis native Conor Daly, who turned a lap of 20.693sec. Starting on the inside of the second row is Joao Victor Horto, a Formula BMW graduate. Fourth on the grid is Connor De Phillippi of San Clemente, Calif., while rounding out the top-5 is Texan Rusty Mitchell.