MRTI: Piedrahita, Martin win Gateway poles - MotorSportsTalk

MADISON, Ill. – The stage is set for today’s pair of Mazda Road to Indy presented by Cooper Tires races from Gateway Motorsports Park, with the Indy Lights Presented by Cooper Tires racing a 75-lap race and Pro Mazda Championship Presented by Cooper Tires racing 55 laps around the 1.25-mile oval.

While Anthony Martin’s Pro Mazda pole isn’t a particular surprise – he and title sparring partner Victor Franzoni have been duking it out for the top spot on the grid all season – Juan Piedrahita’s in Indy Lights is.

The Colombian, who has more than 100 career starts over eight years on the Mazda Road to Indy, scored his first career Indy Lights pole in the No. 2 Team Pelfrey Dallara IL-15 Mazda by the slimmest of margins.

Piedrahita ran only a 160.926 mph first lap but improved to 161.354 mph on his second, for a two-lap average speed of 160.823 mph, and a total time of 55.9620 seconds.

That supplanted Uruguayan Santiago Urrutia’s provisional pole speed and time by a microscopic amount. Urrutia’s first lap in the No. 5 Belardi Auto Racing with SPM car was quicker, at 160.600, but didn’t improve as much on the second lap, only at 161.044. That left him with a two-lap average of 160.822 mph, and a total time of 55.9626 seconds – just 0.001 of a mph and just 0.0006 of a second slower over 2.5 total miles.

“In one and two, because you have to lift, I had a bit of push. So I was downshifting to get a better exit; the car should be great. It’s been very hard for us since everyone else is so competitive. There’s tracks we struggle a lot with the setup but today we got it right,” he said.

“We just took wing out and changed springs on the rear. We knew we had a good car and it paid off.”

Championship leader Kyle Kaiser, who is poised to clinch the title today, enters with a 42-point lead and with Urrutia having been denied a critical point for his title hopes. The driver of the No. 18 Juncos Racing entry will roll off fifth after an abnormal run.

Kaiser’s warmup lap of 160.104 mph looked to see the Californian beat Piedrahita for the top spot, but actual qualifying laps of 160.610 and 159.850 mph left his two-lap average at 160.224 mph, inside of row three.

Andretti Autosport teammates Nico Jamin and Ryan Norman will roll off from row two.

Provisional speeds are below. The race goes off at 6 p.m. CT and local time, and will air on NBCSN on Monday, August 28, at noon ET.

Do not miss this race – Round 15 live from @GatewayMSP at 7:00 pm ET live on the @RoadToIndyTV app and https://t.co/ZCeW1JZmf0!#MRTI pic.twitter.com/XhNtfgPaHk

— Indy Lights (@IndyLights) August 26, 2017

In Pro Mazda, Martin topped Franzoni with the first and only 140 mph average in the series’ lone oval race this year. The Australian, who leads the Brazilian by four points entering the weekend, delivered a two-lap average of 140.001 mph, which was clear of Franzoni’s 139.433 mph speed.

“We learned a lot in the test here a few weeks ago, with a qualifying stint done in that,” Martin explained. “We sort of knew and expected what the temperatures would be. We went faster than what we did in testing. We were able to go quicker than normal. The Cape guys got me an awesome car from the moment I got on track.

“Nah, mate! It was on the edge. The second lap into one I went in really fast, I was so close to flat… I was really trying. The car was definitely on the limit.”

The Team Pelfrey trio of TJ Fischer, Carlos Cunha and Nikita Lastochkin complete the top five.

The Pro Mazda race goes off at 4:55 p.m. CT and local time. Qualifying times are below.

Here is your starting lineup for Round 10 – @Anthony8Martin with his 6th pole, @VictorFranzoni alongside #MRTI #TeamCooperTire pic.twitter.com/GtntWMohZP

— Pro Mazda (@ProMazda) August 26, 2017

Both series also ran a practice session on Friday, with conditions closer to what should be expected for the races. Those times are linked here (Indy Lights, Pro Mazda); Urrutia and Martin topped those sessions.

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Media and fan attention focused on a controversial run-in between Haiden Deegan and his Monster Energy Yamaha Star Racing teammate Jordon Smith during Round 10 of the Monster Energy Supercross race at Detroit, after which the 250 East points’ Hunter Lawrence defends the young rider in the postrace news conference.

Deegan took the early lead in Heat 1 of the round, but the mood swiftly changed when he became embroiled in a spirited battle with teammate Smith.

On Lap 3, Smith caught Deegan with a fast pass through the whoops. Smith briefly held the lead heading into a bowl turn but Deegan had the inside line and threw a block pass. In the next few turns, the action heated up until Smith eventually ran into the back of Deegan’s Yamaha and crashed.

One of the highlights of the battle seemed to include a moment when Deegan waited on Smith in order to throw a second block pass, adding fuel to the controversy.

After his initial crash, Smith fell to seventh on the next lap. He would crash twice more during the event, ultimately finishing four laps off the pace in 20th.

The topic was inevitably part of the postrace news conference.

“It was good racing; it was fun,” Deegan said at about the 27-minute mark in the video above. “I just had some fun doing it.”

Smith had more trouble in the Last Chance Qualifier. He stalled his bike in heavy traffic, worked his way into a battle for fourth with the checkers in sight, but crashed a few yards shy of the finish line and was credited with seventh. Smith earned zero points and fell to sixth in the standings.

Lawrence defends Deegan — *Jordon Smith failed to make the Detroit Supercross Main and fell to sixth in the points. – Feld Motor Sports*

“I think he’s like fifth in points,” Deegan said. “He’s a little out of it. Beside that it was good, I don’t know. I wasn’t really paying attention.”

Deegan jokingly deflected an earlier question with the response that he wasn’t paying attention during the incident.

“He’s my teammate, but he’s a veteran, he’s been in this sport for a while,” Deegan said. “I was up there just battling. I want to win as much as everybody else. It doesn’t matter if it’s a heat race or a main; I just want to win. I was just trying to push that.”

As Deegan and Smith battled, Jeremy Martin took the lead. Deegan finished second in the heat and backed up his performance with a solid third-place showing in the main, which was his second podium finish in a short six-race career. Deegan’s first podium was earned at Daytona, just two rounds ago.

But as Deegan struggled to find something meaningful to say, unsurprisingly for a 17-year-old rider who was not scheduled to run the full 250 schedule this year, it was the championship leader Lawrence who came to his defense.

“I just want to point something out, which kind of amazes me,” Lawrence said during the conference. “So many of the people on social media, where everyone puts their expertise in, are saying the racing back in the ’80s, the early 90s, when me were men. They’re always talking about how gnarly it was and then anytime a block pass or something happens now, everyone cries about it.

“That’s just a little bit interesting. Pick one. You want the gnarly block passes from 10 years ago and then you get it, everyone makes a big song and dance about it.”

Pressed further, Lawrence defended not only the pass but the decision-making process that gets employed lap after lap in a Supercross race.

“It’s easy to point the finger,” Lawrence said. “We’re out there making decisions in a split millisecond. People have all month to pay their phone bill and they still can’t do that on time.

“We’re making decisions at such a fast reaction [time with] adrenaline. … I’m not just saying it for me or Haiden. I speak for all the guys. No one is perfect and we’re under a microscope out there. The media is really quick to point a finger when someone makes a mistake.”

The media is required to hold athletes accountable for their actions. They are also required to tell the complete story.

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