Cumming Claims TOTAL Pole Award On Final Lap At Mazda Raceway

Subtitle:RSR Racing ORECA FLM09 To Lead PC Field At Start

The No. 11 RSR Racing ORECA FLM09 landed on pole in the Prototype Challenge (PC) class. Chris Cumming set a lap of 1:22.565 (97.581 mph), giving him his second career TOTAL Pole Award. Competition was fierce, and it wasn’t until the final lap that Cumming clinched the top spot.

“It feels good, but it was a really weird session,” Cumming said. “We’ve had a great car; we’ve been fastest or second-fastest every session. We thought we definitely had the car to put on pole, and we did. I think we were just hoping it would be a little bit more than fourth-thousandths of a second.”

Along with co-driver Bruno Junqueira, Cumming sits fourth in the PC championship standings.

Cumming is apprehensive of the start of the race, but feels ready. “It’s going to be tight. It’s also interesting because we’re all mixed in with the GTLM traffic to start,” he said. “We’re a little faster, but not at the start of races. They get their tires up to temp much more quickly, so they’re going to be really aggressive and it’s going to be a bit of a mess at first. It will make it exciting.”

Starting second will be the points-leading pair of Mike Guasch and Tom Kimber-Smith. Guasch qualified the No. 52 PR1/Mathiasen Motorsports ORECA FLM09 with a time of 1:22.569 (97.577 mph).

Performance Tech Motorsports will start third after James French set a time of 1:22.689 (97.435 mph) in the No. 38 Ric Man Construction/GO-PUCK/Braille Batteries car he shares with Mike Hedlund. French and co-driver Mike Hedlund will start just ahead of Jon Bennett, who qualified the No. 54 CORE autosport entry with a lap of 1:23.165 (96.877 mph). Bennett’s co-driver is Colin Braun.

Sunday’s race will take the green flag at 1:05 p.m. PT. The race will be aired live on FOX Sports 1.