Sutherland, Goble take Trans Am poles at Thunderhill

TA Cup points leader Ken Sutherland was the fastest overall in qualifying for the Trans Am Series presented by Pirelli Western Championship at Thunderhill Raceway Park, laying down a time of 1m44.360s in his No. 85 Kallberg Racing Dodge Challenger.

“We struggled a little bit yesterday; we were running on our old tires and just didn't know what we had and didn't really want to put new tires on to find out, so we just found out in qualifying that new tires make a big difference,” said Sutherland. “The car is way better. I think we're still a little bit too tight. We're going to work on that a little bit, but we should be good for the race. We’ve got a battle for the TA Cup championship here that hopefully we can decide if things go our way this weekend. If not, we'll have to find out in Texas. We’ve got two races to get through, and hopefully we can go without incident or issues and we'll be in good shape.”

Championship points leader Brody Goble in the No. 69 Brown Bros. Ford Lincoln Ford Mustang was the quickest of the CUBE 3 Architecture TA2 Series competitors, qualifying second overall with a fast time of 1m44.830s. He will line up next to M1 Racecars teammate Tim Carroll in the No. 46 CRDMFG.com Chevrolet Camaro.

“This weekend's been awesome, it's actually the first time we've been to Thunderhill,” said Goble. “It's the one track that's kind of eluded me on the West Coast, so I was really excited to come here and drive a new track for the first time this weekend. We unloaded the car and really haven't made many changes to the M1/Brown Bros. Racing Ford Mustang the entire weekend. I'm really happy that the guys sent us a new setup on the car that we could just unload from the trailer, make no changes, and just focus on me learning the track. It’s so awesome to be here on pole with my teammate Tim Carroll in second place for the two M1 cars. I'll be thinking about just trying to be smart and hopefully walk away with clinching the championship before COTA, and then we can go play with the National guys and try to race them straight up.”

Race one at Thunderhill Raceway Park will be contested Saturday at 3:35 p.m. ET/12:35 p.m. PT.

RESULTS