The final round of the Star Mazda Championship presented by Goodyear takes place this afternoon at the Road Atlanta circuit outside of Braselton, GA. Jack Hawksworth, pilot for Team Pelfrey and 2012 champion, has stepped out of the car this week and is coaching Ryan Tveter who is taking his place in the #82. Jack has dominated the season, but there’s been one driver who has been consistently on his heels and on the podium, Gabby Chavez. Gabby drives the #19 CLARO/Marca Colombia/Tecpro Mazda car for JDC MotorSport and sits in second place in the championship. Yesterday late afternoon, Gabby secured his second pole position of the season, his first in Race #2 in Baltimore, with a time of 1:19.279. Sitting third in the championship, Juncos Racing’s Connor De Phillippi needed every single point from this weekend to overtake Gabby for second. Unfortunately for Connor, he spun out in T1 and destroyed the front suspension and aero of his racing machine. He’ll start back in ninth this afternoon with no hope now of catching up with his Colombian rival.
“I’m so thankful for this after all the work the JDC Motorsports team put in during the season, all the sacrifices my family has made and all the support from my sponsors. It’s so important to start from the pole here because everybody in the race has nothing to lose and everything to gain, so it’s going to be extremely competitive tomorrow.” — Gabriel “Gabby” Chavez, #19 JDC MotorSport
The situation is even worse for Connor as his third place position in the championship is not secure. Sage Karam, driver of the #88 Comfort Revolution machine for Andretti Autosport, was only five hundreths of a second off of Gabby’s time, qualifying in P2 with a 1:19.330. The first lap, and especially Turn 1, of this afternoon’s race should be very exciting with both front-row drivers eager and hungry for a victory. If Sage can gain just four points over Connor, they will swap places in the championship standings.
The green flag drops for the last time for the 2012 Star Mazda season at 3:45pm Eastern this afternoon. You can follow the action through Star Mazda’s live timing and scoring page at http://www.starmazda.com/timing/, and you can listen to Chavez’s post-qualifying interview at http://www.starmazda.com/results/2012/11-roadatlanta/audio/chaves-pole.mp3.
Starting Grid
|
Pos |
No. |
Name |
Best Tm |
Best Speed |
In Lap |
Diff |
Gap |
Sponsor |
| 1 |
19 |
Gabby Chaves |
1:19.279 |
115.339 |
20 |
Claro/ Marca Colombia / Tecpro | ||
| 2 |
88 |
Sage Karam |
1:19.330 |
115.265 |
17 |
0.051 |
0.051 |
Comfort Revolution |
| 3 |
77 |
Zach Veach |
1:19.643 |
114.812 |
24 |
0.364 |
0.119 |
K12.com / Zakosi Data Backup |
| 4 |
81 |
Petri Suvanto |
1:19.858 |
114.503 |
13 |
0.579 |
0.215 |
Mazda Road to Indy |
| 5 |
57 |
Diego Ferreira |
1:19.866 |
114.492 |
23 |
0.587 |
0.008 |
Team Viso Venezuela |
| 6 |
9 |
Juan Piedrahita |
1:20.200 |
114.015 |
20 |
0.921 |
0.334 |
Petrosur / Colombia es pasion / GFK Motors / Lamd Link |
| 7 |
15 |
Bruno Palli |
1:20.272 |
113.913 |
21 |
0.993 |
0.072 |
Team Viso Venezuela |
| 8 |
83 |
Gustavo Menezes |
1:20.407 |
113.721 |
21 |
1.128 |
0.135 |
Team Pelfrey / Safety Park / Oakley |
| 9 |
2 |
Connor De Phillippi |
1:20.539 |
113.535 |
3 |
0.245 |
0.194 |
ModSpace Racing / One24 |
| 10 |
66 |
Zack Meyer |
1:20.601 |
113.448 |
22 |
1.322 |
0.194 |
Partners III |
| 11 |
16 |
Scott Anderson |
1:20.615 |
113.428 |
21 |
1.336 |
0.014 |
Laser Nail Centers / Neuropathy Testing Centers |
| 12 |
82 |
Ryan Tveter |
1:20.942 |
112.970 |
21 |
1.663 |
0.327 |
CIMIER Swiss Watches / Motorola Mobility LLC |
| 13 |
53 |
Andres Mendez |
1:21.023 |
112.857 |
22 |
1.744 |
0.081 |
GrupoKriterion.com / DataFile.com.co |
| 14 |
91 |
Ashley Freiberg |
1:21.055 |
112.812 |
21 |
1.776 |
0.032 |
TRUECar.com |
| 15 |
21 |
Camilo Schmidt |
1:21.352 |
112.400 |
13 |
2.073 |
0.297 |
|
| 16 |
97 |
Juan Camillo Acosta |
1:21.522 |
112.166 |
25 |
2.243 |
0.170 |
STF Group / Studio F |
| 17 |
23 |
Walt Bowlin |
1:24.895 |
107.710 |
8 |
5.616 |
3.373 |
Tampa Bay Jaw Surgery |
