{"id":528,"date":"2017-09-01T15:00:55","date_gmt":"2017-09-01T15:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/?p=528"},"modified":"2017-10-24T15:27:10","modified_gmt":"2017-10-24T15:27:10","slug":"patrick-gallagher-on-battery-tender-global-mazda-mx-5-cup-pole-at-watkins-glen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/2017\/09\/01\/patrick-gallagher-on-battery-tender-global-mazda-mx-5-cup-pole-at-watkins-glen\/","title":{"rendered":"Patrick Gallagher On Battery Tender Global Mazda MX-5 Cup Pole At Watkins Glen"},"content":{"rendered":"

Watkins Glen, N.Y. (1 September 2017)<\/strong>\u00a0\u2013Working to make his $200,000 dream championship a reality, Battery Tender Global Mazda MX-5 Cup presented by BFGoodrich Tires points leader Patrick Gallagher (No. 29 McCumbee McAleer Racing) moved closer to his goal in Friday\u2019s qualifying session as he locked in pole position for both of Saturday\u2019s 45-minute races at Watkins Glen International.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The double-race day Saturday marks the penultimate race meeting for the 2017 Global Mazda MX-5 Cup championship season as the series once again pairs with a Verizon IndyCar event.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know what magic the MMR guys are working on my car, but it makes my job easy!\u201d enthused Gallagher.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019m happy to get a couple more points and finish the year off strong and wrap the championship up this weekend. If not, we\u2019ll go to Mazda Raceway and do it there.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Gallagher looks to secure a championship, all of the racers around him will have a different agenda.<\/p>\n

Starting alongside Gallagher will be 2009 series champion Todd Lamb (No. 84 Atlanta Speedwerks), who came up all of .0331-seconds short of scoring the pole position on the 3.37-mile full course in upstate New York.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s great to come back and be on the front row,\u201d said Lamb. \u201cIt was pretty close for pole there. We had a lot of fun. There were a lot of chess games on track. Ultimately, we\u2019re happy to be back and competitive. We\u2019ve got a different car this weekend. The crew\u2019s done a great job and we\u2019re excited to be on the front row.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rookie racer Bryan Ortiz (No. 4 Copeland Motorsports) locked in a spot on the second row with his run to third on the grid. The Puerto Rican racer is hoping to take the Rookie of the Year championship and the $50,000 scholarship from Mazda that comes with it.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019re ready,\u201d said Ortiz. \u201cI know the last four races will be more important than the others. The team has done an amazing job with the car, so it\u2019s been easy for me. Obviously at this track, the draft plays a big part of it. We were able to find some draft in qualifying, but I think the race will be a big game. Everyone will be around everyone and it\u2019ll be crazy. Hopefully we can finish up front.\u201d<\/p>\n

With two races on deck for Saturday, and a big picture to consider, Ortiz knows that he will have to balance aggression with patience.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously we need to race hard, but understand that there\u2019s not a lot of time to fix the car between races,\u201d said Ortiz. \u201cThe way we are in points, even if it was one race tomorrow and one race on Sunday, we can\u2019t have a bad race. We need to finish and finish up front. I want to win, but I need to think about the rookie points because it\u2019s very close and we want it!\u201d<\/p>\n

Starting alongside him will be 2016 series champion Nathanial \u201cSparky\u201d Sparks (No. 8 Sick Sideways Racing), who still has a mathematical shot of defending his championship if he can make a late season surge.<\/p>\n

\u201cTwo races in one day is demanding for a driver,\u201d said Sparks. \u201cYou need a strong mental game all day long. I hope that I can drive well and if I can get a good head of steam in the first race, that\u2019ll carry through to the second race. You\u2019ve got to hope you don\u2019t have any contact or mistakes, because that will cost you for race two.\u00a0 The championship could come down to this weekend. Patrick\u2019s been driving super solid; all he has to do is keep doing what he\u2019s been doing and he\u2019ll run away with it. I\u2019m going to run my best, try to get a podium and hopefully I\u2019ll be able to push him all the way to the last race of the year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Saturday\u2019s Round Nine race will go green at 9:35 AM ET and will be streamed live on\u00a0www.racecontrol.indycar.com<\/a>, as will Saturday\u2019s Round Ten race, slated for 4:30 PM ET.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Watkins Glen, N.Y. (1 September 2017)\u00a0\u2013Working to make his $200,000 dream championship a reality, Battery Tender Global Mazda MX-5 Cup presented by BFGoodrich Tires points leader [\u2026]<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":529,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-mazda-mx-5-cup"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=528"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":560,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/528\/revisions\/560"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sundaymanagement.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}