Alex Lloyd claimed his fifth pole of the season, earning the SWE Pole Award for the Chicagoland 100.
Lloyd, who wrapped up the series title at Infineon Raceway on Aug. 25, recorded a lap of 28.7799 seconds, 190.133 mph to earn his 12th front-row start this season. Wade Cunningham (189.916 mph) was second.
CHICAGOLAND 100 POST-QUALIFYING NOTES:
• This is Alex Lloyd’s fifth SWE Pole Award this season and the fifth pole position of his Indy Pro Series career. His last pole came at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in July.
• Lloyd qualified on the front row for the 12th time this season. He qualified on the front row for each Indy Pro Series event where qualifications were held.
• Wade Cunningham qualified second. It is his fourth front-row start this season.
• Ben Petter qualified a career-best third. His previous best was sixth at Kentucky in 2005.
CHICAGOLAND 100 POST-QUALIFYING QUOTES:
ALEX LLOYD (No. 7 Lucas Oil/Isilon/Sam Schmidt Motorsports, SWE Pole Award winner): “I'm very happy with today. It's going to be a very close race. It's one of those races where no one is going to run away. It's going to be a big pack. I'm happy with the car we've got. It's like playing a chess game, and then hopefully put yourself in the right place. A little bit of luck is involved in winning a race like this, but it's going to be a great race. I'm sure we'll put on a great one for the fans." (About qualifying on the front row for every race where qualifying took place): "That's something that definitely means a lot to myself and the team. When you look at that, that's a pretty good record, especially when you look at all the different kind of tracks we race on. On every weekend, no matter what, we've been right there either the quickest or right there as second quickest. That really shows the performance we've had all year."
WADE CUNNINGHAM (No. 27 Automatic Fire Sprinklers, qualified second.): “We tried some qualifying simulations in the second practice and we ran slower than we did with our race setup. We didn’t really know what we were doing today so we just sort of put it back to where it was and sent it out to qualify. So we weren’t really sure what was going to happen, but we’re second at the moment. I’m sure the other Sam Schmidt car is going to be quick, so I wouldn’t say it’s a foregone conclusion yet. But we have a reasonable time – we’re close to Alex (Lloyd), but not quicker than him. They’ve had the dominate car all season and we’ll have to work harder to catch them.”
JIMMY KITE (No. 43 SWE Racing/SWE Race Car Parts, qualified 14th): “It’s been a lot of learning. It’s a brand new car and obviously we’ve got a rookie driver in it. It’s a lot of fun. It seems like every time we go out we learn something a little new. Running in the packs I know is a lot of fun. It’s fun watching too. It’s going to be fun to be out there in the middle of it. There’s a rookie group of us. But if (team owner) Steve (Eppard) decides to bring me back next year, we’ll know when we come back what to do differently. But we’ll make some changes. It looks like we have a couple cars to pass tomorrow, but it makes it a fun day.”
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The next IndyCar Series event is the PEAK Antifreeze Indy 300 presented by Mr. Clean at 4 p.m. (ET) on Sept. 9 at Chicagoland Speedway. The race will be televised live by ABC and broadcast by the IMS Radio Network. The next Indy Pro Series event is the Chicagoland 100 on Sept. 9 at Chicagoland Speedway. ESPN2’s coverage of the race will be televised at 5 p.m. on Sept. 13.
