Daytona24: Ryan Lewis qualifying report

RYAN LEWIS WILL LINE UP ON THE NINTH ROW FOR THE ROLEX 24

Daytona Beach, Florida- January 28th, 2011 - Ryan Lewis qualified for his first ever Rolex 24 at Daytona in the 18th position yesterday after posting a lap of 1m50.135s in PR1 Motorsport's #32 BMW M6. Lewis will be making his GRAND-AM debut tomorrow alongside teammates Tom Papodopoulos, Max Hyatt and David Cheng.

Lewis had his first experience behind the wheel of the GT class BMW M6 earlier this month during the Roar Before the 24 where he quickly had to adapt to a new track and a new car. After a successful test Lewis continued to impress during the official practice sessions and was selected by the PR1 crew to qualify their car. The 26 year old will take the green flag for the historic endurance event tomorrow and will look to repeat the podium result he scored with the PR1 team last year at the Petit Le Mans.

Ryan Lewis: "Coming out of qualifying yesterday I wasn't too happy with my performance, I don't think I maximized what the car could've done, I was just a bit too conservative. But on the positive side I think we have a very good balance for the race, the car definitely looks after its rears, it's not too heavy on the tires and it has pretty good braking stability, so those are the type of things that you want in a 24 hour race. Today we just focused on bedding rotors and brakes and scrubbing a few sets of tires and now we just need to prepare and look to move forward in the race.

This will be my first race at Daytona, the first few laps that you run on the banking just give you a new respect for the guys that race in Cup and go two and three wide for 500 miles at 200 miles an hour, when you are out there and you are passing a car on the outside or inside it gets pretty tight and they just do it all day. But I really like it, it's a great circuit, it has a lot of history and it's always somewhere I wanted to race, so the fact that my first 24 hour race will be here is pretty exciting. Now we just need to focus on keeping the car intact and getting to the last couple of hours in a good position and then we can start pushing and fighting for the top spots."

The green flag for the Rolex 24 will drop Saturday at 3:30pm (ET).

-source: ryan lewis PR