Randy Pobst, of Gainesville, Ga., collected his 24th career pole at the Detroit Belle Isle Grand Prix for SCCA Pro Racing SPEED World Challenge GT Championship Round Eight race. Andy Pilgrim, of Boca Raton, Fla., will start second.
In one of the busiest qualifying sessions of the season, Pobst bounced in and out of the pole position, his nimble Porsche battling with the hometown Cadillacs and Corvettes.
“It’s my car chief Paul Delio’s birthday today and I think fate wasn’t to be denied,” Pobst said.
“I think the K-PAX Porsche is obviously suited to this racetrack. We have a great setup from Will Moody, the mad scientist, for street courses. What changed during that session was the track. We were out real early in the morning and we were basically cleaning the track. It was a real humid morning. There was actually a low fog hanging in the paddock that looked very ominous, like a horror film. Something where you’d expect to see a zombie coming out of the woods.”
Once on top of the timing screens, Pobst brought his No. 1 K-PAX Racing Porsche 911 GT3 into pit lane.
“I came in and parked, I was on pole and everything was beautiful. I was kind of in that mode where hopefully everyone used up their tires and nobody will go any faster. And then Will Moody told me that Eric Curran was on pole. Then I started hoping that the track was changing. It’s unusual in World Challenge to see cars go faster later in the session.
“So I went back out and I know that [Team Manager] Bob Raub was sweating bullets because he hates it when the car goes back out on the track in qualifying. He says that’s always the perfect time for the driver to try too hard and wreck it, which I almost did about three times. But fortunately, its Paul’s birthday and the fates kept stopping the car when it was heading for the wall.
“Somehow in there, we got the pole. I didn’t even know it. The times come up on my dash really late on the pit straight and I’m already in the braking zone and Will Moody is so quiet on the radio, he won’t tell me. He doesn’t like talking. But I knew I was going faster because my shift lights were coming on sooner in some parts.”
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