BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - Ruby Tuesday Championship Racing Team driver Bill Auberlen qualified ninth for Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series Porsche 250 presented by Bradley Arant at Barber Motorsports Park.
Making its debut this weekend at Barber, Auberlen powered the No. 23 Ruby Tuesday Championship Racing Team Porsche-powered Riley to the ninth quickest lap of 1:21.949 (100.038 mph). Auberlen turned his fast lap in just his fourth circuit around the 2.3-mile, 16-turn country club-style road course.
“The weird thing is that we came out of the last practice with some handling issues that we knew about,” Auberlen said after qualifying. “We are just moving the car around to find out what works and what doesn’t because the car is so new to us. So, we took a little bit of a guess and went a certain direction and it didn’t work. We know exactly what the problem is. We just need to find out what screws to turn to fix it. It is just one problem and it affects us in a lot of turns. We turn the right screws and this thing is going to go right to the front.”
“This is the first chance we’ve had to qualify with the Riley and we are still learning this car, which is to be expected,” Team Owner Alex Job said. “We’ve basically started from ground zero with the new car and we missed the mark a little bit in qualifying. Unfortunately our competition has had years to learn the Riley. But, I believe we know what to do to make the car better for the race.”
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