This Driver Has a Jones for Rain

While most say they are hoping for dry conditions today for the running of the Grand Prix of Long Beach, excuse P.J. Jones if he says his fingers are crossed, hoping for rain.

Jones had the best individual qualifying effort in a provisional session in Toyota’s three-year Champ car history on Saturday under wet, slippery conditions.

Jones, son of racing legend Parnelli Jones and driver for Dan Gurney’s Santa Ana-based All American Racers, was 14th in afternoon qualifying at 89.297 mph.

Unfortunately for Jones and AAR’s Reynard Toyota, Friday’s results in dry conditions were the faster of the two qualifying sessions and Jones (107.971) will start 25th, on the inside of Row 13.

Jones’ previous best individual qualifying effort was 18th last year in Portland, Ore., also in the rain. His best finish ever was ninth, in Detroit, in 1997.

Saturday’s field was split in two groups, and Jones was second-fastest in the first group during provisional qualifying.

“I know P.J. Jones is looking forward to the rain,” quipped Bobby Rahal, who starts on the outside of the front row. “Power is not necessarily a good thing in the rain. The rain is the great equalizer.”

Toyota’s third-year racing program, executed by AAR and Rancho Santa Margarita-based Arciero-Wells Racing, is trying to catch up to the more established Honda, Ford and Mercedes engines. If rain is the great equalizer, as Rahal suggested, perhaps Jones’ showing is an example of what’s to come when Toyota’s horsepower is more equitable with the competition.

Jones must be nearly flawless to move into the top 12 and get some points, which is Gurney’s hope.

“The fact is we don’t have the power of the other teams,” Jones said. “If Max [Papis, in the Arciero-Wells Toyota who qualified 24th] and I had improved our time by one second, we still would have been [15th]; there’s a lot to gain in power.”

Papis, Jones and rookie teammate Alex Barron are within two-tenths of a second of each other with Papis on Firestone tires and Gurney’s team on Goodyears.

Now, it’s up to the engine to help get them closer to the leaders.

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Qualifying times from Friday’s session remained fastest, meaning Papis will start 24th (108.030), Jones 25th (107.971), Barron 27th (107.554) and San Clemente’s Hiro Matsushita 29th (104.955) in the 29-car field.

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Papis, who made Newport Beach his home, considers Long Beach his home course. Not only is he using a Toyota engine, which is built at Toyota Racing Development’s Costa Mesa plant, but Toyota is also the race sponsor.

“One, I’m happy for the progress Toyota has been making in durability and the mechanical things with the engine,” Papis said. “On the other hand, I’m disappointed because in front of my crowd, in front of my people, I’m still 24th.

“Long Beach is one of the worst tracks to show off our engine because it’s a 51-second track with two drag strips connected by four corners, and you need a lot of horsepower to go down there. And that’s the thing we lack at the moment.”

Notes

Derek Hill of Costa Mesa finished fourth in the Toyota Atlantic Championship race, driving for P-1 Racing. . . . Costa Mesa’s Shigeaki Hattori will start seventh in today’s Indy Lights championship. . . . The two Arciero-Wells prepared Atlantic teams had a rough day. Anthony Lazzaro was 16th and Masaoki Nagashima 33rd. . . . Dan Vosloo of Santa Ana moved from 25th to 15th. . . . Zak Brown, whose race engineer is Mark Weida of San Clemente, crashed without completing a lap. . . . Champ car pole-sitter Bryan Herta attended UC Irvine for one year. Herta studied economics. He was born in Michigan and lives in Ohio. “The running joke,” Herta said, “is that I’ve got about eight home races.” . . . Only 10 of the 38 laps of Saturday’s season opener of the Toyota Atlantic series were run under a green flag. Memo Gidley of San Rafael holding off a race-long charge by Andrew Bordin of Woodbridge, Conn. Italian Andrea Delorenzi was third.