Long Beach, CA (My Sportsbook) - After winning Friday's provisional pole, Justin Wilson backed it up with another superb performance on Saturday winning the pole for Sunday's Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach, the final race of the Champ Car Series. The No.02 Newman/Haas/Lanigan driver circled the 1.968-mile, 11-turn, temporary street course in one minute, 06.902 seconds (105.898 m.p.h.). The pole victory was the seventh of Wilson's Champ Car career. Starting on the outside of row one will be Alex Tagliani, who posted a second- best time of 1:07.084. Franck Perera (1:07.180) and Will Power (1:07.205) will make up row two. Graham Rahal, winner two weeks ago in St. Petersburg, will start ninth. This is the final event of the CART/Champ Car World Series which has finally joined up with the IndyCar Series to form one open-wheel series. However, the two sides got together too late for either this race or IndyCar's Japan Indy 300 to shift to a separate weekend. Not wanting to upset either venue, the former Champ Car drivers are racing in California while the IndyCar stars went to Motegi, Japan. Both races will accrue IndyCar Series championship points. The race is scheduled to drop the green flag on Sunday at 4 p.m. (et). |
