The qualifying session at Lime Rock Park for the Northeast Grand Prix saw cooler conditions and overcast skies, which made for an interesting 30 minutes of qualifying.

Stephen Simpson piloted the No. 85 JDC/Miller Motorsports ORECA FLM09 to pole position during the qualifying session, with a best lap time of 49.055 seconds.

The session was almost scratched due to a red flag that was called when Todd Slusher overpowered his No. 16 BAR1 Motorsports car out of the chicane and crashed into the wall with less than 10-minutes remaining in the session.

It took almost all of the remaining time of the session to clear the crashed vehicle. By the time the green flag was given, only 20 seconds remained. Instead of scratching the session, the race directors decided to let the cars run until the 6:00 pm track curfew, giving the drivers the necessary amount of time to make the session official. Closer to the end, spots of rain began to fall on the track, diminishing the chances for drivers to put in faster laps.

Qualifying second was James French in the No. 38 Performance Tech Motorsports car, with a best lap time that was a little over 0.6-seconds slower than Simpson. Less than a second-and-a-half separated the entire Prototype Challenge field.

In the GT Daytona class, Dion von Moltke claimed his second pole this season (the first coming at Detroit earlier this year). Von Moltke drove the No. 48 Paul Miller Racing Audi R8 LMS with a fastest lap of 54.004 seconds. Second on the GTD grid for tomorrow's race will be Ben Keating in the No. 33 Riley Motorsports Dodge Viper SRT, less than a tenth-of-a-second behind. Keating pushed his car hard during the last few laps, but ended up going off the track with only two minutes remaining in the session. After the mistake, Keating was unable to put in any faster laps.

The top-seven in the GT Daytona class were all in the 54-second range. Absent during qualifying for GTD was the No. 97 Turner Motorsport BMW Z4 car, after it was crashed with Michael Marsal behind the wheel in the opening session of the weekend earlier in the day. The team will be working on the car to get it back on track for the race tomorrow.

The Northeast Grand Prix will begin at 3:15 pm ET on Saturday. Follow @VAVELSportsCar on Twitter for continued coverage during this race weekend.

Barun Ghosh is a writer for the VAVEL USA Racing section. Follow him on Twitter at @ba_vroom.