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Virginia (VIR): Rand Racing qualifying notes

Overall pole Rand Racing will start from the overall pole position for Sunday's Rolex Sports Car Series race at Virginia International Raceway. Saturday qualifying was stopped due to heavy rain, so the SRP and SRPII class start order was ...

Overall pole

Rand Racing will start from the overall pole position for Sunday's Rolex Sports Car Series race at Virginia International Raceway. Saturday qualifying was stopped due to heavy rain, so the SRP and SRPII class start order was determined by car points. Terry Borcheller will start from the pole position in the SRPII-class No. 8 Rand Racing Nissan Lola he drives with Anthony Lazzaro. Ralf Kelleners will start the No. 7 Lola from fifth overall. He will alternate driving stints with Niclas Jönsson and Marino Franchitti.

"The weather helped us out and we have a nice photo opportunity," strategist Thomas Blam said. "20 years from now we'll put the picture up with the big SRP car next to us!"

Wet track

Borcheller and Kelleners each completed one lap of the 3.27-mile road course before the qualifying session was stopped. Borcheller agreed with the decision to end the session. "Normally I wouldn't [agree], because I'm used to running in the rain from go-kart days and I typically do all right there," he said. But "there were a couple of spots on the race track, particularly the front straightaway, where they were probably going to lose a couple of cars so it was a smart thing to do."

Borcheller said standing water on the front straight was difficult to see: "There were some areas on the front straight in particular where the gloss of the asphalt and the glare from the sky made it real hard to tell the difference between a puddle and just a slippery spot."

Rain race

What does it take to win in the rain? "Patience," Ralf Kelleners said. "It takes patience not to go off. It's difficult to follow the cars because you can't hardly see anything. The session was stopped because there was aquaplaning, but we won't have that in the race because there will be more cars on the track."

Rand Racing strategist Thomas Blam says survival will be key. "Since this is a five-hour race, just stay off the walls and the guardrails for the first four hours and hopefully you're one of the last ones staying around at the end. You try to bolt on as much downforce as you can. You can do some things to the rear wing and add some dive planes to the front. We'll probably put a bigger gurney on the rear and maybe raise the cars a bit to get them out of the water if there are a lot of puddles."

-rr-

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