LEXINGTON, Oh. — With under three minutes to go Saturday (June 6), CarBahn Motorsports with Peregrine Racing’s Jeff Westphal set a lap at 95.391 mph. This lap held up to give Westphal the pole for Sunday’s IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge O’Reilly Auto Parts 4 Hours of Mid-Ohio.
Westphal’s lap was .375 seconds faster than AutoTechnic Racing’s Stevan McAleer. Van der Steur Racing’s Trenton Estep will start third in his Aston Martin, followed by Koch-Copeland Motorsports’ Ford Koch. Ibiza Farm Motorsports’ Moisey Uretsky was fifth in his McLaren.
Grand Sport qualifying saw defending race winner Dillon Machavern lead the way early on. That lap was usurped a couple of laps later by Estep. McAleer was also in the mix.
Just past the halfway point of the session, Westphal put his BMW on top. The veteran racer normally doesn’t qualify in Pilot Challenge events, but the extra distance means that teams can switch up their qualifying strategies.
McAleer attempted to keep pace with Westphal with quick laps of his own, but Westphal responded with the gauntlet. With under three minutes to go, he put down the eventual pole time, which included the best time of the session in all three segments.
No one could touch the veteran racer as he took his first pole position since 2011. At that time, he was driving a BMW in the then-Grand-Am Continental Tire Sports Car Challenge for Insight Racing.
In TCR, Bryan Herta Autosport’s Bryson Morris was the first driver to officially set a time. It was faster than the vast majority of the class. The only driver to beat that lap was KMW Motorsports with TMR Engineering’s Rocco Pasquarella, who was late getting out of the pits, but went much harder on his warmup lap than anyone else.
Morris and Pasquarella spent much of the session swapping the top spot back and forth. Montreal Motorsports Group’s Daijiro Yoshihara was also in the mix.
With a little more than four minutes to go, Pasquarella set a lap at 93.905 mph. That lap held up to give Pasquarella his second pole of the year.
The lap was just .008 seconds faster than Morris. Yoshihara will start third, then Victor Gonzalez Racing’s Tyler Gonzalez in the Cupra. Steven Clemons, who was fastest in practice Friday, was fifth.
IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge O’Reilly Auto Parts 4 Hours of Mid-Ohio Qualifying Results
The O’Reilly Auto Parts 4 Hours of Mid-Ohio is scheduled to go green at 12:10 p.m. ET Sunday afternoon. Coverage will stream live starting at Noon ET on both the IMSA Official YouTube channel and on Peacock.
Phil Allaway has three primary roles at Frontstretch. He's the manager of the Frontstretch email newsletter that publishes Monday-Friday and occasionally on weekends. He keeps TV broadcasters honest with weekly editions of Couch Potato Tuesday and serves as the Frontstretch Sports Car racing editor.
Outside of Frontstretch, Phil is the press officer for Lebanon Valley Speedway in West Lebanon, N.Y. He covers all the action on the high-banked dirt track from regular DIRTcar Modified racing to occasional visits from touring series such as the Super DIRTcar Series.
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