Devin Anderson in the #22 TechSport Racing Ford Mustang Dark Horse R took pole in Mustang Challenge qualifying by a knife-edge margin over Sebring victor Cole Loftsgard in the #42 Round 3 Racing car, with a gap of 0.008 seconds!
The returning driver took home the fastest sectors in Sector one and two to make up his impressive 1:32.406 lap time, with Loftsgard edging him out in Sector three. Anderson was seen in the paddock earlier today wearing a wrist brace on his right hand with a possible sprain, and put his TechSport Dark Horse R on top with a mega effort despite this.
“The qualifying session was tough because the red flag came out before any of us got our tires heated. But luckily I had a good gap, and we were able to click off three or four laps that were really good. My Ford Mustang Dark Horse R felt great, and I feel great heading into the race tomorrow,” said Anderson.
Cole Loftsgard, as usual at this point, looked massively quick straight off of his out lap, immediately putting in laps around the 1:33.0 range, leading the field. This was just before an incident involving the #58 Nick Smither Racing car of Nicholas Smither in turn ten red flagged the session and halted the grid’s building momentum.
Smither was penalised by having his two fastest laps removed due to causing the red flag, and finished the session at the back of the grid, having not set more than two laps.
Behind Anderson and Loftsgard finished Sandy Satullo in the #7 in the first of three sequential Wheelhouse Motorsports finishers; newcomers Will Lucas in the #34, and Michael Tosi in the #77 finish out the top five overall.
Making his sports car racing debut this weekend at Laguna Seca, Nolan Allaer in the #3 Spark Performance car finished the session in sixth position, 0.6 seconds back from Anderson’s time. Coming from the open-wheel stream, Allaer joins Spark Performance this weekend, the team with which Alex Bachoura found massive success in Mustang Challenge the past two seasons.
The top six’s lap times all fell well under a second of each other. Very similar to last time out at Sebring, where the top five were separated by 0.8 seconds.
In Dark Horse Legends, Chris Clarke in the #9 Paley Motorsport with AAG car was the fastest with a 1:35.265, finding good pace in the shortened session and marking the fastest lap of the DHL class overall today.
“The crew worked really hard to get the car where it was, and during qualifying, it handled amazingly well. I wasn’t sure what to expect in the session, so I was just driving as hard as I could and it worked out. The Dark Horse R is an amazing car and I’m having a blast in it. I’m not setting expectations for race one, I’m just going to drive the best I can,” said Clarke.
There was a similarly slim margin for fastest in class with Tom Tait in the #8 Wheelhouse Motorsports Mustang crossing the line just 0.077 seconds slower. Joe Koenig, running well all day, put his #70 Round 3 Racing car in third position, ahead of series regular Paolo Salvatore in the #84 Torre Racing machine in fourth.
Joseph Dederichs in the #63 Wheelhouse Motorsports car looked very good all day, finishing first and second in the respective two practice sessions, and finished the session in P5. He will have some ground to make up in tomorrow morning’s 45-minute race.
Race 1 of the Ford Mustang Challenge North America at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca will begin at 8:50 AM PT (local time).
Images © Ford
