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And the red flag is out! Race control reporting a red flag situation......all times frozen for now; top-5 are Bourdais, Junquiera, Power, Allmendinger and Servia

Just as I suspected; safety crews have gone out to retrieve Wirth.....apparently, he did run out of methanol!


As a result, however, Wirth will lose his fastest time in the session; he currently sits 14th in the session


11 minutes remaining in the session.........

Green flag! Green flag! And cars race back out of the pits to complete the session........race control reporting that both RuSport cars will not take part in the QS-1....mechanics reporting damage to Briscoe's car from the crash he suffered in the first session, and there are reports of mechnical concrens on Wilson's car

6 minutes left in the session......Bourdais still leads

Make that three no-shows; race control reporting that, because of the shunt Tracy suffered in practice #1, the Forsythe team may not get him out to make a flyer in the QS-1

Allmendinger on a hot lap now.....and he knocks SeaBass off the mountaintop!

Allmendinger now P1! Both he and Bourdais are currently the only drivers under 1:32

Bourdais closes the gap; Allmendinger still P1

Allmendinger 1:31.677
Bourdais 1:31.774

3 minutes remaining in the session.....top-5 are Allmendinger, Bourdais, Junquiera, Servia and Phillipe

Never mind.....Power now rockets back to P1; this qual. session is gettin' good now!

And......RED FLAG! RED FLAG! Checking to see what race control is reporting......Allmendinger has crashed at turn 8......Allmendinger will lose his fast time, dropping to fifth; Power still leads

And the checkered flag falls; the session is over, and rookie Will Power(#5 Aussie Vineyards FC/L) takes provisional pole w/a time of 1:31.403, taking one championship point and guaranteeing himself a front-row start!

Well done mfer and well done Will Power. Excellent work.

With one's day activities in the books, here are some of the observations from Surfers Paradise.........

1}Bad day for RuSport......Friday was an abysmal day for the Colorado-based RuSport Racing squad as they saw both of their drivers befelled w/problems. First, they withdrew Justin Wilson's entry because of a freak wrist injury the lanky Brit suffered earlier in the day(apparently, he clipped a tire stack going through one of the turns.....the stack's rubberized covering caught the right-front tire, jerking the steering wheel from him and injuring his wrist.... ). To make things worst, new teammate Ryan Briscoe shunted his car in the long first practice and was unable to take part in QS-1.

2}How many no-shows were there? RuSport wasn't the only ones to not answer the qualifying bell. Besides Wilson and Briscoe, FCR's Paul Tracy failed to answer the bell as a result of his shunt at the VB Chicane during the first practice. In addition, PKV Racing's Katherine Legge was a no-show in QS-1 due to an engine failure, most notably the fact that the Cosworth XFE-2 in the #20 Bell Micro machine would only run on 2 1/2 cyls. It could get worse for PKV, though......telemetry from teammate Oriol Servia's car indicated possible engine concerns for the #6 car as well......

3}So that's what they were doing.....back in August, everyone(myself included) wondered where Team Australia was during the Road America tests? Well, considering that rookie Will Power scored his first career ChampCar provisional pole, now we know. Instead of spending resources at the RA test, they invested a lot of time and money on making the cars better for their home race(i.e Surfers Paradise) including tons of time using dyno and 7-post shaker test systems(effectively using all their R & D budget) and the rest, they say, is history.

Brief update on practice session #3..............

~~Forsythe duo fastest; Allmendinger and Tracy w/in .1 secs
Top-5 after session............

1}A.J. Allmendinger, 1:32.929 sec
2}P. Tracy, 1:33.007
3}B. Junquiera, 1:33.064 sec
4}S. Bourdais, 1:33.080 sec
5}(R)A. Pizzonia, 1:33.194 sec

QS-2 about to begin in a few minutes.........and it is a pretty beautiful day out on the Gold Coast, perfect weather it seems for some street racin'!


And session #4 has ended; here are the top-5......
1}B. Junquiera, 1:34.162 sec
2}A.J. Allmendinger, 1:34.316 sec
3}(R)W. Power, 1:34.475 sec
4}N. Phillipe, 1:34.524 sec
5}O. Servia, 1:34.707 sec

QS-2 about to begin..........

According to the streaming video feeds courtesy of ChampCar's Race Director service, it appears there is lots of activity around the #1 pits as the qual. session begins; could there potentially be a problem w/Bourdais's car?