ALTON, Va. — Practice and qualifying are in the books for the Trans Am Series presented by Pirelli at VIRginia International Raceway.
Connor Zilisch earned the Motul Pole Award in his first-career TA class start, laying down a lap time of 1:41.692 in the No. 7 Franklin Road Apparel/Silver Hare Racing Chevrolet Camaro.
Zilisch achieved a similar feat two years ago, surprising the garage when he won the pole in his Big Machine Vodka SPIKED Coolers TA2 Series debut at the same Virginia road course.
“[Running in TA] has been a super enjoyable experience,” said Zilisch. “I’m very fortunate that Maurice and Laura Hull, Ken Thwaits and GM got together to give me this opportunity to race this car at VIR. It’s one of my favorite tracks, and to come here and just kind of dominate so far this weekend is special. We were the fastest car in every session other than the first test.
“Every session, I’m getting more acclimated to the car, figuring it out and understanding what I need from the car. I feel like we’ve got a really good baseline going into the race tomorrow. We’re going to make a few adjustments to hopefully make it better on race runs and give me a little more confidence going into the race, but I think we have a really good piece going into tomorrow.”
TA Qualifying (Top Five)
1. Connor Zilisch, No. 7 Franklin Road Apparel/Silver Hare Racing Chevrolet Camaro (1:41.692)
2. Justin Marks, No. 99 Trackhouse/Jockey Chevrolet Camaro (1:43.387)
3. Martin Ragginger, No. 17 Top Liner/CP Tech Chevrolet Camaro (1:43.408)
4. Chris Dyson, No. 16 GYM WEED Ford Mustang (1:43.879)
5. Keith Grant, No. 40 Showtime Motorsports Chevrolet Camaro (1:44.136)
XGT Qualifying
1. Danny Lowry, No. 43 Bennett/BridgeHaul/Pitboxes.com Mercedes AMG GT3 (1:51.744)
2. Shannon Herford, No. 51 NAPM Inc. Porsche 911 GT3R (1:53.482)
3. Ricky Sanders, No. 18 BridgeHaul/Bennett Family of Companies Audi R8 LMS (1:54.441)
SGT Qualifying
1. Lee Saunders, No. 84 LandSearch LLC Dodge Viper (1:56.725)
2. Milton Grant, No. 55 Springhill Suites/Sentry Self Storage Porsche 991.1 GT3 Cup (1:58.940)
3. Richard Forsythe, No. 58 Sambuca Restaurant/GSpeed Chevrolet Corvette (2:00.719)
4. Brion Gluck, No. 47 Gallant Few/Factory Five/Gibbons Factory Five GTM (2:12.226)
GT Qualifying
1. Chris Coffey, No. 97 Norwood Auto Italia/Traffic Grafix Maserati MC GT4 (1:56.841)
2. Michael Attaway, No. 91 Bennett/BridgeHaul/Pitboxes.com Audi R8 (2:06.495)