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| August 31, 2002 – Jonathan Macri Qualifies 11th in Denver The stage is now set for the final act of the 12-race of the 2002 Atlantic Series that has been nothing short of dramatic. The streets of Denver, Colorado will play host to today’s final Atlantic race. Only after the waving of the checkered flag at the Shell Grand Prix of Denver will this year’s Championship crown be decided. Will it be Lynx Racing’s Michael Valiante or Dorricott Racing’s Jon Fogarty? Fans will soon find out as they follow racers through the 1.65-mile temporary road course. The inaugural Atlantic race, Jonathan Macri, though out of Championship contention, will be racing hard to finish well. In official qualifying early this morning, Macri ran the course in a time of 1:10.232 seconds and at a speed of 125.862 Kph. Jonathan’s fastest lap put him in 11th on the start-grid, 1.147 seconds behind session leader Ryan Dalziel (Hylton Motorsports). “We were looking to improve on yesterday’s first qualifier, but it seems we’ve actually moved a few steps back,” Jonathan said. “The car feels pretty good and we’re not far off from the front. We need to bring down our time to be competitive. But, I’m happy with the way the car performs and so long as it performs well come race day, we should be competitive. Denver is a new course and it’s definitely exciting to drive here. I will be looking to try to move up. Eleventh is a tough place to start from, especially on a road course, but we’ll just try to pressure for mistakes and hope for a few lucky breaks.” Ryan Dalziel will be starting first on the grid followed by Dorricott Racing’s Alex Gurney and Hylton Motorsports’ teammate Ryan-Hunter Reay. Jon Fogarty (Dorricott Racing) and Joey Hand (DSTP Motorsports) round off the top-five starters. Michael Valiante will start 6th. Valiante leads the Championship with 146 points. Fogarty sits in a close 2nd with 140 points. Jonathan Macri goes into today’s race in 7th-place with 85 points. Race Report by Fedele Fortino |
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