2011 Round of Decatur qualifying races

The 2011 Round of Decatur qualifying races were a series of races designed to fill out the field for the 2011 Round of Decatur.

Procedure
Three pre-qualifying races were held with the cars that did not time their way into the race during pole qualifying.

The top 14 finishers from each of these races advanced to the main qualifying race.

Qualifying Race
Alexis Rainsford nearly wiped the top four out in the first corner, Adrien Devereux hopped the curb and took the lead as Scott Bates ran a tick wide.

In the back, Kraig Mummert got punted by Gaspar de Sousa on the first corner, and Mummert might have saved the car, but he collected Joao Paolo Vidal, Ziggy Waldemar, and Cyrus LaTerza. All four had damage and fell off the pace.

The Volpi team for once didn't blow a pit stop, and Rainsford was able to stay with Devereux, before passing him on the track. They ran nose to tail until the end of the race, with Marcos Leonard and Scott Bates right behind them.

Results
x-indicates one-off entry

Failed to Qualify

 * Mikko Forsstrom
 * Rachael Rainsford
 * Kurt Plissken
 * Mark Blackwell
 * Scott Steudler
 * Gary De Sousa
 * Joao Paolo Vidal
 * Kraig Mummert
 * Cyrus LaTerza
 * Ziggy Waldemar

Pre-qualifying races
Each of the pre-qualifying races were 18 laps in distance.

Race 1
Michael Sykes led all but one lap from the pole. The only lap he didn't lead was because of pit stops. Not like it mattered a whole lot.

Old friends Packer Carroll and Brian Sendack tangled on the first lap and sent Troy Griffith off course. Further down the field, Ryan Griffin pushed up into John Jefferson, taking both into the wall. Both continued, but with extensive damage.

With only two laps remaining, Mike Whitmore, who had been running 11th, pulled off the course after a tire exploded.

Mikko Forsstrom, Ryan Matthews, and Ike Durbin were one step closer to making their TM Master Cup Series debuts, while Sendack was a step closer to his first start of the year.

Notable among the did-not-pre-qualify list were Danny Savin (whom Sendack shoved out of the way at the top of the Hill with two laps to go), ARLA title contender Kevin Monroe, Daniel Foray (whose first foray into TM Master Cup Series racing did not go well), Shane Lake, and Leigh Gruell.

Results
x-indicates one-off entry

Failed to pre-qualify

 * Danny Savin
 * Thomas Moore
 * Lucas Sweeney
 * Kevin Monroe
 * Brian Morris
 * Shane Lake
 * Paul Rothstein
 * Dmitry Koslov
 * Daniel Foray
 * David Krikorian
 * Barton Sandy
 * Andrea Kinasa
 * Jim Hayes
 * Troy Adams
 * Leigh Gruell
 * Denis Predikin
 * Dan Mackay
 * John Jefferson
 * Mike Whitmore
 * Troy Griffith
 * Ryan Griffin

Race 2
Adrien Devereux broke the track record and put his car on pole with the Lady in Red alongside him on the front row. Most drivers would use caution when starting on the outside of the front row at Decatur in a prequalifying race, but Rainsford opted to throw caution to the wind, nearly jumping the curb in a hero-or-zero move to take the lead. It worked.

Fortunately, nobody else tried anything quite as crazy in the first turn of the first lap. Before the field got to turn 3 (a right hander), Anthony Griffith pulled to the left into Justin Robinson, trying to run him into the grass. Robinson did not budge. The result was both cars going off course and Robinson bouncing off the wall. His day was done after he drove the 79 car back to the pits.

Griffith was invited to the Steward's Office.

After turn 3, Casey Lester got into Cyrus LaTerza, which looked to spin the No. 99 car but in reality send the car for a 25-yard-long drift. The field stacked up, and too many cars in too small a space at the top of the hill inevitably leads to a crash. Today was no exception.

Michael Dougly continued his streak of not making friends this week by turning Sarah Xavier around and nose first into the wall. Xavier would have been fine and have driven away from this incident. That is, if Yevgeny Kuznetsov knew where the brakes were and didn't hammer into the right rear of Xavier's car. Darrell Wallace hammered into the back of Kuznetsov's car, eliminating both and Xavier on the spot. Nobody was injured.

Rainsford in the meantime opened up a huge lead before green flag pit stops, where the Volpi crew (typically) blew it and gave the lead to Devereux, who led until the end. Rainsford had a four-second lead before the pit stops. After the pit stops, she was eight seconds back. Whoops.

A good battle ensued in the midfield for the race, and it was a tight battle to get the transfer positions. However, annoying backmarkers (Dougly, Mike Walczak, and Griffith), rained on that parade.

Dougly jammed up Axel Andersson (running 10th at the time), who was lapping Walczak's Tutino. Behind Andersson was Chris Davenport, who, being the epitome of patience, punted the Tutino out of the way, taking Andersson and himself off the track. Taylor Silverman also went off track as well but he wasn't hit by anyone.

One lap later, Griffith jammed up his "good friend" Allie Riggs going up the hill. Riggs made several attempts to spin the No. 31 car of Griffith out, but her last attempt was foiled by LaTerza. LaTerza intended to actually race and poked his nose under Riggs going up the hill. Riggs attempted to punt the No. 31 off the course. She succeeded, but she also cut across LaTerza's nose in the process, sending herself and Griffith off course.

There was a little bit of drama still to come. Nils Tolonen, running second in his Finntech Omecha, broke a camshaft and exited the race. Meaning, of course, that he racked up a did-not-pre-qualify. Kurt Plissken was the beneficiary.

After the race, Griffith and Riggs got into a confrontation near Riggs' hauler, with Griffith apparently getting the worse of the encounter.

Results
x-indicates one-off entry

Failed to prequalify

 * Bob Stephans
 * Jim Moore
 * Larson Jensen
 * Casey Lester
 * Stan Rosenstreter
 * Alexey Stoyanovich
 * Taylor Silverman
 * Curtis Darcy
 * Gary DeSouza
 * Bobby Dollar
 * Makodo Yamata
 * Nils Tolonen
 * Michael Dougly
 * Allie Riggs
 * Axel Andersson
 * Anthony Griffith
 * Mike Walczak
 * Justin Robinson
 * Sarah Xavier
 * Yevgeny Kuznetsov
 * Darrell Wallace

Race 3
Phillip Borland was scheduled to start the No. 68 car from 36th, but blew up on the pace lap.

Scott Bates was the class of the field, leading 17 of the 18 laps. Cameron Taylor, in the meantime, was busy getting booted off the road by Tom Delgado in turn three. It was a move that the stewards did not particularly like, and issued a warning to Delgado for reckless driving.

Vitaly Karpenko's Tolyatti did what Tolyatti does best midway through the race &mdash; it blew up!

Other than that, Jacob Kard, subbing for Jacques Bouvier, did a tremendous job to finish third.

Results
x-indicates one-off entry

Failed to prequalify

 * Franz Redlich
 * Patrick Henderson
 * Stuart Sandoval
 * Ryon Reffett
 * Matt Taylor
 * Tyrone Stanley
 * Tom Delgado
 * Jose Luis Martinez
 * Bobby Porteau
 * Craig Jonser
 * Lev Vladimirovich Polzin
 * Palmer Stiles
 * Mika Tervo
 * Chris Allen
 * James Dalton
 * John Bracchi
 * Frank Azure
 * Vijay Pushanda
 * Afzal Tahmid
 * Vitaly Karkpenko
 * Cameron Taylor