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Qualifying report

Pickett Racing on pole in Baltimore

Pole winner Lucas Luhr celebrates

Pole winner Lucas Luhr celebrates

Richard Sloop

Luhr captures 20th career pole

Pole winner Lucas Luhr celebrates
Pole winner Lucas Luhr celebrates

Photo by: Richard Sloop

Baltimore, MD (August 31, 2012) - Lucas Luhr always said he loves street circuits and he proved it again today by capturing his 20th career pole in his first visit on the streets of Baltimore and by giving Muscle Milk Pickett Racing their sixth pole position of the season.

While the German was in a heated battle with Dyson Racing's Guy Smith with the two of them exchanging fastest laps in the opening minutes, it was Luhr that came out on top.

After posting a best lap that was more than half a second quicker than the #16 Dyson car, Luhr continued to improve and registered a fastest lap of one minute 25.174 seconds which was more than seven tenths over second place.

The pole position was also the fourth consecutive one for the Muscle Milk team who was taking part in its first qualifying session on the 2.02-mile street circuit.

Earlier in the day the team had also topped Practice 2 that had been shortened to 30 minutes after a change in the schedule that allowed organizers to add a chicane over the light rail tracks to prevent the cars from getting airborne.

The German duo of Klaus Graf and Lucas Luhr will be back on track Saturday morning for the warm up session at 10:20 am. The Baltimore Sports Car Challenge presented by SRT goes green later that day at 4:30 pm ET and will be streamed live on ESPN3.com.

Round 8 of the 2012 American Le Mans Series season will be broadcast on tape delay on Sunday, September 2 at noon on ABC.

Muscle Milk Quotes

Lucas Luhr, #6 Muscle Milk HPD ARX-03a "My first impression of the track this morning was when I saw a picture of Simon Pagenaud in his Indy car getting airborne! I was like 'wow!'.

"Overall, I think the track is very good and its great for the drivers and the series to be able to race in front of the Baltimore fans.

"I like street circuits a lot and I think Baltimore is one of the best ones I've driven so far, except for the front straight of course!

"It's disappointing that they have to put the chicane in, as it was already there last year and they could have come up with a different solution in one year but it's the safest thing to do, we don't need cars taking off, so it's the right decision.

"The other parts of the track are nice, yes it's a little bit bumpy but it's a street circuit, it's normal. It's really challenging and nice to go around here. As everybody said, it will be a tough race tomorrow.

"As usual it will be important to get a good start. You will never win a race in the first corner and we're all aware of that. It is even more difficult to brake or out-brake somebody here offline and go diving on the inside. Even in qualifying you could feel that from lap to lap you have more grip so the offline side of it gets worse.

"The easiest way is to get a good start and a clean run through the first corner. It's going to be very difficult because the track is not very wide and the GT cars are only a couple seconds slower, even with the PC and P2 cars, it's not like you can cut through them easily. There will need to be a lot of respect from both sides and a little bit of give and take otherwise there will be a long safety car period!"

Source: Muscle Milk Pickett Racing

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