USRT has a Good Friday at Edmonton

The US RaceTronics duo of Carl Skerlong (#24 King Taco/USRT) and David Garza (#4 Axtel/Tecate/Madisa/USRT) qualified forth and eighth respectively for Friday's Qualifying session for the first of two Rexall Grand Prix of Edmonton doubleheader.  After the last two races this qualifying result was hopefully a sign of positive things to come. 

For the morning practice session both USRT drivers put up decent times.  Once again both drivers were almost equal when comparing their times.  Skerlong put up a session best lap of 1:07.826, which was good enough for eighth, while Garza bettered him with a fast lap of 1:07.748, putting him in the seventh spot

The Qualifying session later that day would prove that the good Practice session results were no fluke and that both drivers had the cars and ability to be in competitive form this weekend.

Qualifying began under sunny and humid conditions.  Each driver entered the time charts in strong form but as usual the times would fluctuate wildly throughout the session.  Before the first pit stop Skerlong did manage to claw his way to the fifth spot on the timesheets, while Garza trailed in ninth.  After their pit stop Garza shot up to the third best time while Skerlong broke the top-5 time barrier. 

With ten minutes to go both drivers continued to push and use every inch of track. The hard work was rewarded and soon Garza saw his time shoot up to second best and Skerlong pulled a seventh best lap.  Soon thereafter the Red Flag was shown as a result of an incident involving Alan Sciuto.  After the Red Flag and with three minutes left in the session it looked as though the duo would finish after the top- 5 drivers, but as racing sometimes go, the last lap proved an exciting one and with seconds ticking away Skerlong ripped a lap that was good enough for the forth position, which is where he would finish the session. It was later determined that Alan Sciuto's penalty was not to be levied and thus Skerlong's time would put him in the fifth spot.  This is Skerlong's best qualifying effort since Houston, in which he qualified forth.  For his part, Garza would end up eighth on the time sheets which is his second best qualifying effort, but it is his best starting spot ever for a race this season.

Carl Skerlong - "It's disappointing to have our forth place turn into fifth but all in all it was a great effort by the team and its good to be back in the top 5.  I hope we'll have an incident free race and another great qualifying effort for tomorrow"

David Garza -"It was our best starting position yet so I'm real happy.  We had a great car but didn't show our full potential.  The car was fun to drive and I think tomorrow's qualifying effort will be better.  I'm looking forward to the race tomorrow as I think we have our best shot at a podium thus far. 

About US RaceTronics: 2007 marks the third year of competition in the Champ Car Atlantic Championship Series for US RaceTronics. Led by former Dorricott Racing Team Manager Shane Seneviratne, US RaceTronics enters the 2007 season with Monterrey Mexico native David Garza and American Carl Skerlong.  US RaceTronics is part of Pacific Coast Motorsports Jr. Team program

For more information on US RaceTronics and its partners, visit www.usracetronics.com.  You can visit David Garza's website at www.david-garza.com and Carl Skerlong's website at www.cskerlong.com