Corvette may have taken victory in the past six TUDOR United SportsCar Championship events in the overall Prototype class but Joey Hand showed today that Ford is ready to get back to victory lane after scoring pole at Road America.

Hand stopped the clocks with a time of 1:56.452 on his sixth lap around the classic Road America circuit.

The pole was the first for Hand in the TUDOR United SportsCar Championship and the first for the Ford-powered Chip Ganassi team this year.

“It’s my first pole in the TUDOR Championship and first pole with Chip Ganassi and the first one for our team this year,” Hand said.

“I’m super excited to be a part of this team and be the guy that does something for them. Some of your first laps here, its a fun lap, you want to do another lap no matter what you’re driving. I’ve been coming here since 2001, so when you have a good race car underneath you it makes for a really fun time.

“We had a car that was pushing during practice and during qualifying I didn’t know what to expect, but the Ganassi guys did a great job making some changes for our qualifying questions.”

Hand will start tomorrow’s race before handing over to veteran Scott Pruett.

Championship leader Michael Valiente was second fastest .568 of a second adrift of Hand’s Ford-powered Riley. Ricky Taylor was third fastest for Wayne Taylor Racing ahead of John Pew aboard Michael Shank Racing’s Honda-powered Ligier P2-machine.

The PC pole position went to James French who grabbed the top spot on the final lap of qualifying from Chris Cumming.