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Gregg Wins Pole for Texas Race |
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June 10. Sam Schmidt Motorsports’ Travis Gregg turned in the
fastest qualifying speed to earn the pole for tomorrow’s Firestone 100
Menards Infiniti Pro Series race at the high banked Texas Motor
Speedway. For Travis, it is his second pole this season, and will
be his fourth front row start. He ran three Pro races at the end
of last year for Sam Schmidt, and reeled off a pole in his first race,
followed by two consecutive second place starts.
Travis will not feel alone on the front row. Next to him will be
his teammate Chris Festa, and behind is another teammate, Jaime
Camara. Wade Cunningham of Brian Stewart Racing is the only
non-Schmidt driver in the front two rows.
Behind the starting second row are Vision Racing’s Jay Drake and Nick
Bussell with JL West Motorsports. In the fourth row is a surprise
starter, driving the Brian Stewart Racing number 3 car, Arie Luyendyk
Jr., and next to him Marty Roth of Roth Racing.
The rest of the field is made up of Jeff Simmons, P. J. Abbott and Jon Herb.
Luyendyk Jr., who qualified for the Indy 500 race only to be bumped out
at almost litereally the last minute, is a very experienced Pro driver
with 32 starts over the period 2002 to the present. For at least
this race, Arie has taken the seat previously occupied by “Just Al”
Unser. With Luyendyk’s experience perhaps he and Cunningham can
team up to challenge the Schmidt three-some, who will certainly work
together to try to dominate the race.
There is no word about Unser, who finished fourth at
Indianapolis. There was a media release in New Zealand on
Thursday that
reported that another of that country’s rising young star drivers,
Matthew Hamilton, will be doing a one day test at the Nashville
Superspeedway on June 22 with Brian Stewart Racing.
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