Petty and Davern win poles in Long Beach

Brett Davern was awarded the celebrity pole position after turning the quickest lap during qualifying for the 38th annual Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach Pro/Celebrity Race. Davern, who stars as ‘Jake Rosati’ in MTV’s hit-series “Awkward," drove his 210-horsepower Scion FR-S around the 1.97-mile street course in downtown Long Beach with a lap time of 1:45.638.

“Brett proved he’s a racer at heart," said Toyota’s National Motorsports Manager Les Unger. “He returned to the Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach Pro/Celebrity Race this year to improve his performance — and he succeeded. All the drivers did a great job today, and will be ready to put on an impressive show in Saturday’s race."

Davern, who is competing for “Racing for Kids," received a Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach Pro/Celebrity Race Pole Position plaque and a GoPro Hero 3 Black camera.

“This is an amazing feeling," Davern s aid. “I love racing, I’ve loved racing forever and this has been an absolute blast, and the fact that it’s for the kids makes it all the better."

Max Thieriot, an actor who currently stars as ‘Dylan Masset’ on “Bates Motel," will start second, followed by Cole Hauser, television and film actor who is starring with Johnny Deep in “Transcendence." The celebrity drivers will get a 30-second advantage over the professional drivers at the start of Saturday’s race.
In the professional category, Kyle Petty scored the fastest driving time in the same session, with a lap of 1:45.1, followed closely by Al Unser Jr. at 1:46.323 and Rutledge Wood, last year’s celebrity winner, who turned a lap of 1:46.590.

Petty praised Toyota in a press conference, saying this has been one of the “greatest experiences in his life."
“Toyota does a fantastic job — so much goes into this event, the training, the practice days, everything," Petty said. “It has been a great time, and after racing both a Ford and Dodge, I can finally cross racing a Toyota off of my bucket list."

Toyota will donate $5,000 to Racing for Kids in the name of each participant and an additional $5,000 to the winning racer’s charity of choice. Racing for Kids is a national nonprofit program benefiting children’s hospitals in Long Beach and Orange County, Calif. Toyota has donated more than $2 million on behalf of the race and its participants to various children’s hospitals since 1991.

Saturday’s race starts at 12:00 p.m. PDT.

To learn more about the Toyota Pro/Celebrity Race, go to www.toyotaracing.com, visit Toyota Racing on Facebook or on Twitter @ToyotaRacing, or join the conversation with the participants using #ProCeleb.

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