Trois-Rivieres: Bomarito captures pole and record!

Mathiasen Motorsports driver Jonathan Bomarito not only put all the other drivers on notice, but he did so in dramatic fashion with an exclamation mark, capturing the pole position for the second time in as many days with a blistering and new Atlantic track record time of 58.989! Bomarito was the only driver to drop below the 59 sec. mark in this morning's clean and nothing but green 2nd qualifying session.

“What an amazing session, really,” Bomarito said. “We had it pretty much mapped out before we even went out and we stuck to the game plan. We made a good change on pit lane. It was a perfect session. I can’t thank the guys enough. The whole Mathiasen Motorsports team is amazing. We’ve got Atlantic legend Dave Empringham here working with us this weekend. It’s really good to finally work with him on a race weekend. It’s just been a lot of fun. We’re enjoying it, we’ve got great momentum and we’re looking forward to a good race tomorrow.”

The first stint of the session was for the most part a three way battle between American's Carl Skerlong, Dane Cameron and provisional pole sitter Jonathan Bomarito. 21 minutes into the session, following a quick lull in the action allowing teams to change to new tires for their final stint, Markus Niemela & Daniel Morad joined in the battle for the top spot for Sunday's race.

While no one ultimately had anything for Bomarito, several drivers made fantastic last lap charges towards the checkered flag to compete for that second spot on the front row. Canada's Daniel Morad looked to have it locked up until Jonathan Summerton snuck into the battle and snatched it away at the line.

“Of course, qualifying second, my best qualifying yet, was really good,” Summerton said. “We were going for that pole position, but we just didn’t quite have it today. We put the new set of tires on really early, and basically, I don’t know what happened, but we had a little bit of a change in the setup, I guess, from the old to the new. I was told to stay out and just keep running laps. It was a lot of fun, to say the least. I’m really happy to be second out there.”

The track is definitely faster today, as the top 12 drivers in this mornings session were all under yesterdays provisional pole time.

“It feels good to be here, first off,” Morad said. “I think this is where I like to be. The team did a great job. All weekend we’ve been fairly quick and we have good pace. We just got off to a good start. That made the difference, really, because all the previous weekends, we’ve just had bad luck. We’re a brand new team and we’re having problems like all new teams do have. It’s good to be here. Our strategy in qualifying was perfect. We put the tires on at the right time and the car, what can I say? It was perfect. My engineer set the car up perfectly. I made a few mistakes here and there, but I think tomorrow for the race, we should be okay. I’ll try to go for the big one. I haven’t been here before, but I think now is the time. I think I’ll take the win tomorrow.”

The race gets underway on Sunday afternoon at 1:30pm ET.

*a special thank you to Steven Hubert for providing photos from the track*

Copyright © 2004-2008 OpenWheelWorld.net