Stevenson Motorsports VIR Post-Qualifying Report

Alton, Va. (21 August 2015) – Stevenson Motorsports qualified its team Camaro Z/28.R machines on the third and fourth rows of the IMSA Contientnal Tire SportsCar Challenge grid at Virginia International Raceway on Friday. Matt Bell, who shares the No. 9 Camaro Z/28.R with Lawson Aschenbach, was fifth quick, while Andrew Davis, who teams with Robin Liddell in the No. 6 Camaro Z/28.R, will line up seventh.

Davis and Liddell continue to lead the Continental Tire SportsCar Challenge championship standings by 15 points.The Virginia day brought typical warm and muggy weather conditions along with vast amounts of sunshine for two 45 minute practices that preceded the 15-minute evening qualifying session.Continuing to adapt to the current IMSA regulations that keep the Camaro from delivering all of the performance it’s capable of, both Bell and Davis squeezed all they could out of their respective cars during the qualifying run.Bell’s time of 1:58.906-seconds around the 3.27-mile road course was enough for the inside of the third row. He will open the 2.5-hour race on Saturday before handing the Camaro over to Aschenbach.“The car was great, honestly, and we had the handling dialed in for those couple of laps,” said Bell. “It’s just really the straight parts we don’t do so well on right now, and that’s a series mandated issue we’re struggling with. It’s unfortunate because we see how hard this Stevenson team works and how much they’ve put in to making sure they have the best cars and bringing on engineering firms like Pratt & Miller and General Motors but fifth is the best we can do on a weekend where the drivers have no complaints about their cars. We’re always good on strategy, so we’ll probably gain a few places. Big thanks to the team and to Chevy.”Davis delivered a 1:59.366-second fast lap in qualifying and will take the green flag from seventh on the grid before turning the car over to Liddell to fight to the finish.“We struggled and we’re not used to qualifying as far back and not being as competitive, but the Stevenson Motorsports guys work really hard,” said Davis. “We’ve tried to get our Z/28.R working better, but that was all I could do on one lap. We pretty much get one flying lap on these tires before they start to fall off. We thought in some of the practice sessions it looked like maybe we’d have something to challenge for the front two rows but in reality we’re well off the pace this time. Now we turn our focus to the race. We’ve got the best crew in the business, the best pit stops and great strategy. We just have to drive our own race tomorrow and let the cards fall as they will. I’m proud of the effort of the team and we’re looking forward to having the opportunity to have Team Chevy and Stevenson Motorsports back up front where we feel we deserve to be.”The green flag will fly for the 2.5-hour race at 1:25 PM ET on Saturday. IMSA.com will stream the event LIVE.FOX Sports 1 will televise the race Sunday, September 6 at 9:00 AM ET.