Great Start - Lewis Qualifies 5th

Corey Lewis had a great start to his race weekend in Virginia posting the 3rd fastest time in the opening practice session and then qualifying 5th.

The qualifying session was postponed to after 6:00 p.m. due to a rash of accidents which disrupted the entire schedule. Lewis' qualifying lap was 2:06.653 on the 3.27 mile road course, while those ahead of him were at 2:06.651, 2:06.587, 2:06.280, and the pole sitter was at 2:05.318.

By comparison, the Suntrust Grand Am prototypes, racing today (live on Speed) ran a polesitting 1.42.740 or 114.580 miles per hour.

As noted in the post on Friday, I had a chance to meet Corey earlier this week before he headed to Virginia for the race. While not an interview, I couldn't resist peppering him with questions about the series.

He'd previously raced the Regional Series, which allows little adjustment to the car by the driver, and in this year's National Series there are roughly five adjustments that can be made to the car. This requires the drivers to better understand what they need from the car to make it go faster and how to do it. Barber Dodge provides the cars and a coach, but ultimately the driver must learn how to make the right adjustments in practice.

At Sebring Lewis noted how he'd never been on the long course before so in addition to a new car, he was faced with a new track. Lewis qualified 18th at that race, so the jump to 5th and nearly 3rd was a tremendous gain this weekend.

We also discussed the challenges of finding sponsorship in general and in this environment in particular. While the series provides a car and a coach, there is no assistance for the drivers related to marketing themselves and gaining sponsorship. To run the full series, Barber Dodge estimates a driver will need $60,000 and with 7 race weekends that results in about $9000 per weekend (there are two races at each track).

So while Corey is doing well on the track, he needs to work even harder off it to get the sponsorship to keep racing.

Sage Karam qualified 12th for the race improving from the 19th position at Sebring. Karam's sponsorship situation was resolved when he won a scholarship from Barber Dodge in December, which has allowed him to focus on learning the new car and tracks as he also competed on the regional level last year.

Last evening, Barber Dodge posted qualifying results and included pictures on their web site and both Karam and Lewis' cars were featured (visit the page here).

Race one is today at 10:00 a.m. - good luck to both drivers!