Lucas Luhr took the overall and P1 class pole for the American Le Mans Series' race in Baltimore. Luhr, who missed this race last year, drives with Klaus Graf in the Muscle Milk Pickett Racing HPD ARX-03a. Guy Smith of Dyson Racing was roughly six tenths of a second off the pace in the Lola B12/66 Mazda coupe, and later made contact with the Turn 9 wall at the end of the session.
Oliver Gavin (co-driving with Tommy Milner) put in a series of fliers, driving utterly like a man possessed, in securing the GT class pole for Corvette Racing. Gavin and Chris Dyson had contact in the prior practice session, with the right side exhaust of the No. 4 C6.R replaced in the pits. Despite the contact, he recovered nicely with the ultimate pace.
BMW made it to the outside of the front row with the No. 55 M3, qualified by Bill Auberlen and co-driven by Jorg Mueller. The second Corvette (Jan Magnussen qualifying, with Antonio Garcia) edged the fastest Porsche (Patrick Long, Flying Lizard Porsche) on row two. The second BMW (Dirk Mueller and Joey Hand) and leading Ferrari (Scott Sharp, Extreme Speed Ferrari) next up. Defending race class winners Team Falken Tire roll off seventh in class.
Dirk Mueller had a remarkable moment as he lost control through the temporary chicane, then spun and contacted the outside retaining wall with his right rear suspension. That said, it was fairly minimal damage and the car should be repaired in time for Saturday's race.
Unfortunately, the No. 91 SRT Viper is set to be withdrawn following a heavy accident at the end of the second practice. Dominik Farnbacher ran off line and nose-first into the wall at Turn 9, and was unharmed although the car suffered significant front end damage.
Christophe Bouchut beat Martin Plowman (Level 5 HPD ARX-03b to Conquest Morgan Nissan) to the P2 class pole on his final lap, a last-ditch 1:27.119 edging Plowman's 1:27.199 for the honors.
The weekend's busiest driver, Bruno Junqueira, scored the PC class pole although damaged his car exiting the frontstraight chicane, contacting the left front suspension. Junqueira, racing in both ALMS for RSR Racing and IndyCar for Sarah Fisher Hartman Racing, secured his third pole of the year ahead of the CORE autosport teammates (Ryan Dalziel, Colin Braun), the returning Performance Tech team in the hands of Rafa Matos and Kyle Marcelli of Merchant Services Racing.
“I can't believe I made it on pole,” Junqueira said, having edged Dalziel by just 0.077 of a second. “The third lap was really good but the car was bent.”
Damien Faulkner scored his fourth GTC class pole of the year for Green Hornet Racing ahead of fellow class pros Leh Keen (Alex Job Racing), Michael Valiante (JDX) and Spencer Pumpelly (TRG).
Saturday's race goes green at 4:30 p.m. Eastern.