Minor Takes Lime Rock Pole in Rain

Minor somehow strung a quickest lap together despite a big field and less-than-ideal visibility around Lime Rock in his No. 88 Citation/Zetec for Ski Motorsports to take pole by just under four tenths of a second.

Bamford kept up his rain pace from the morning practice session, where he was fastest of all, and qualified second in a car that Remy Audette has driven to victory at Lime Rock in the past. Bamford is, as usual, also running in the F1600 races this weekend at Lime Rock, jumping between his Formula F Mygale and F2000 Van Diemen.

McDonough, coming off a third place at Road Atlanta in his first event in 2013, qualified third in the rain in the first of the Radon cars, the No. 69 entry for GTP Motorsports. The 2006 Champion has multitudes of laps around Lime Rock in the rain and could figure in for the wins on Saturday, especially if the weather stays as predicted, wet.

Kyle Connery qualified fourth after leading dry practice, ahead of John McCusker in fifth place, showing off his rain driving skills in his best qualifying result of 2013 in his rookie campaign.

Jim Libecco followed in sixth and then it was Kevin Kopp, Robert Wright, Tom Fatur and Roberto Lorena.

Wright is in a Radon from Momentum Motorsports, while Fatur, also a local Lime Rock expert, is in a Van Diemen from GTP Motorsports.

The Friday at Lime Rock featured the entire F2000 community looking at the skies and radar, as morning practice took place during a downpour before the track dried for second practice, and then clouds moved in again, leading to a wet qualifying.

For that dry practice, however, Kyle Connery – who has never won at Lime Rock – dropped a set of fast laps going down to 50.3 around the 1.53-mile track.

Temperatures were chilly, never getting out of the fifties, while Saturday’s schedule calls for colder temperatures and yet more rain in the Northwestern corner of Connecticut.

The doubleheader event at Lime Rock will see the second race’s grid order set by fast laps in race one.

Rounds five and six of the 2013 F2000 Championship Series happen tomorrow, Saturday, May 24, at Lime Rock Park, with races scheduled at 9:50 and 3:10 local time.

Qualifying Results:

PosNo.NameMake/ModelLapsBest TmDiff 1 88 Tim Minor/M Citation Zetec 11 1:06.631 - 2 71 Steve Bamford/M Van Diemen Zetec 9 1:07.028 +0.397 3 69 Matt McDonough Radon Zetec 8 1:07.547 +0.916 4 91 Kyle Connery Van Diemen Zetec 10 1:07.789 +1.158 5 01 John McCusker RFR Zetec 9 1:08.341 +1.710 6 98 Jim Libecco Van Diemen Zetec 10 1:09.376 +2.745 7 22 Kevin Kopp Van Diemen Zetec 10 1:07.823 +1.192 8 17 Robert Wright/M Radon Zetec 10 1:09.757 +3.126 9 70 Tom Fatur/M Van Diemen Zetec 9 1:10.169 +3.538 10 9 Roberto Lorena Van Diemen Zetec 9 1:10.780 +4.149 11 99 Federico Mosconi Van Diemen Zetec 9 1:11.187 +4.556 12 52 Dean Baker/M Van Diemen Zetec 5 1:11.726 +5.095 13 68 Steve Jenks/M Van Diemen Zetec 9 1:12.584 +5.953 14 42 Bill Jordan/M Van Diemen Zetec 9 1:13.251 +6.620 15 15 Aaron Pettipas Van Diemen Zetec 9 1:12.378 +5.747 16 12 Bob Reid/M RFR Zetec 9 1:12.562 +5.931 17 67 Dave Weitzenhof/M Citation Zetec 4 1:13.456 +6.825 18 7 Brent Gilkes/M Van Diemen Zetec 9 1:12.603 +5.972 19 86 Jim Hanrahan/M Radon Zetec 4 1:13.695 +7.064 20 16 Peter Gonzalez/M Radon Zetec 9 1:14.461 +7.830 21 61 Tom Drake/M Van Diemen Zetec 3 1:17.928 +11.297 22 1 Kem Lall/M Van Diemen Zetec 7 1:19.611 +12.980 23 57 Scott Baroody Mygale Zetec 4 1:16.714 +10.083 24 08 Hilton Tallman Mygale Zetec 2 1:19.781 +13.150 25 23 Sergio Pasian Van Diemen Zetec 1 1:21.406 +14.775 26 47 Chris Monteleone Van Diemen Pinto 2 2:34.571 +1:27.940 27 07 Rob Laverty Van Diemen Ford 0 -.--- - 28 29 David Grant Van Diemen Zetec 0 -.--- - 29 31 Brendan Puderbach RFR 0 -.--- - 30 35 Eric Presbrey/M Van Diemen Zetec 0 -.--- - 31 39 Shane Morris Van Diemen Zetec 0 -.--- - 32 51 Dan Denison/M Van Diemen Zetec 0 -.--- - 33 83 Charles Finelli/M Van Diemen Zetec 0 -.--- -