Catchfence

KANSAS CITY, KS (April 30, 2010) – After dodging rain for much of the morning and early afternoon, Raphael Matos turned in a four-lap average of 209.912 to qualify 14th for the RoadRunner Turbo Indy 300 at Kansas Speedway.

Matos will start on row seven with Sarah Fisher. Ryan Briscoe from Team Penske captured the pole, while Dan Wheldon and Marco Andretti had their qualifying times disallowed for going below the white line.

“I thought we had a pretty good run,” Matos said. “I think we maximized everything we had in the car. I feel good about the balance and I think we’ll have a better racecar than a qualifying car.”

Consistent rain in the morning forced the combination of the morning and afternoon practice sessions and pushed qualifying start time to 5:15 p.m. The Luczo Dragon de Ferran Motorsports team used the delay and joint practice session to work on their racecar.

“The car felt good in practice, but it was difficult to really compare ourselves to the other cars because we were concentrating on our racecar setup,” Matos said. “The team did a good job and we made good use of the rain delay. We tried to analyze data from the Long Beach race, watched some race videos and spent some time talking about Indianapolis. We had some quality time in our trailer.”

- Luczo Dragon/de Ferran Motorsports, Press Release