Pole Day for the 2009 Kyoto 500 was held on June 20th at the Kyoto Oval. With qualifying trying to best mimic the Indianapolis 500 format, speed and consistency was required. With over 50 drivers qualified to enter for only 30 spots in the race, the action was sure to be intense, and the spread expected to be minimum.

Early on in the session, Patric Papenfuss (karkar) of Fragmaster Racing set fastest time, which stood until about a third of the way in, when Jeff Garry (Skydiver173) set a new pole time, running four laps of 36.96 seconds each. He would stay there, despite the best efforts of fellow FM teammate Ronald Kasemier (ronaldnl), and independent Tim Vecchioni (VECCHIONI).

With fifteen minutes to go in the session, Dan Sanger (Raven88) took to the track for his second attempt of the day. After his first lap of 36.96, everyone was on pins and needles waiting to see if he could take pole. His second lap was a 36.97, which made everyone more nervous to see if he could pull speed out of the bag in the last two laps. His next lap was a 36.95, which brought him back to pole, and all he needed to get pole was a 36.96, which he did, tying him on average time with Garry, but Sanger won the tiebreaker by having the fastest lap of the two of the run.

38 drivers posted times on Saturday for the 500, with more still to come Sunday, with Bump Day. Only thirty slots are available for the race, and those thirty spots will be fought for tooth and nail. The current separation from 1st to 30th is a mere 0.0625 seconds. Pole is locked in now, but spots two through thirty are bound to change around during Bump Day on Sunday.

You may track the times by visiting the following link to a web version of a Google Document: http://spreadsheets.google.com ... _cOilcFI1k7pKLg&gid=0
The server is on Remote, if you are interested in following along via that. Look for host "NDR|2009 Kyoto 500".

The 2009 Kyoto 500 will be held on June 27th, 2009, with coverage live on multiBC starting at 16:30 UTC. Join Michael Passingham and Thilo Falkenberg as they bring you live flag-to-flag coverage of "The Greatest Spectacle in LFS"

The Kyoto 500 is run by New Dimension Racing, and is a points-paying event for the LFSCART Championship.

Dan Sanger's car that will bring the field to the green on June 27th.