Pat Dollard | Young Americans

Well, after one hell of violent practice at the Indy track, the coveted pole position has been decided …

New Zealand’s Dixon claims pole for Indy 500 …

New Zealand’s Scott Dixon won the pole position for the 92nd Indianapolis 500 here Saturday, edging English teammate Dan Wheldon for the inside front row grid spot in the May 25 race.
Dixon took his first Indy pole by circling the 2.5-mile (4km) Indianapolis Motor Speedway oval in two minutes, 39.0348 seconds for a four-lap qualifying average of 226.366 mph (362.185 km/h).

“It’s unbelievable. What a day,” Dixon said. “We put a solid run in. As a team we dominated. It’s nice to get the pole. To be on the front row is what we are going for and the pole is even better.

“But I’ll take the race win over the pole any day.”

Wheldon, his Chip Ganassi Racing teammate, was second at 226.110 mph (361.776 km/h) with Australian Ryan Briscoe completing the front row of the 33-car field at 226.080 mph (361.728 km/h).

The first 11 spots in the lineup were on offer Saturday with the next 11 to be decided Sunday. Next weekend will see the final spots filled and then have the slowest qualifiers bumped from the lineup.

Wheldon passed Danica Patrick for pole position in the early afternoon, then watched as Briscoe and Dixon withdrew qualified cars and took advantage of their tension-filled second chances to move past him on the grid.

One mechanical failure or a split-second mistake could result in a worse starting spot, or in some cases missing the first-day qualifying altogether.

“You have so many elements,” Dixon said. “We took a conservative run early to see where we were. Every one of us were sweating bullets.”

But in the final minutes, Wheldon withdrew his front row car and took a run at the pole. He settled for moving ahead of Briscoe into second, giving Ganassi a 1-2 finish and the two prime pit positions together on race day.

“I thought we had a little more speed. It wasn’t quite as good as I would like,” Wheldon said. “We had good race cars. If we could be fastest at the track, it’s great for the team to be 1-2.”

Like Dixon, 2005 Indy 500 winner Wheldon has his eyes on the checkered flag prize more than pole position.

“You don’t get any points for winning the pole, or get the glory, but this is the biggest race in the world and everybody wants it,” Wheldon said.

“I’ve been fortunate. I’ve won the Indy 500. I’ve won the championship. It would be nice to have the pole. But if you ask me if I’d rather have this or the race, I would take the race.”

Two-time Indy 500 winner Helio Castroneves, last year’s pole sitter and Briscoe’s Brazilian teammate for Penske Racing, was fourth with Patrick fifth and 2005 pole sitter Tony Kanaan of Brazil sixth.

Patrick won in Japan last month to become the first woman to win a race in a major series and qualified comfortably for a chance to become the first woman winner at Indy.

“We were definitely running on the edge the whole way around,” Patrick said. “I was nervous going in. I hadn’t done a full four-lap qualifying practice run. I didn’t know what to expect. But we worked hard and everything worked out.

“We have a fast enough car to be on the pole so it feels nice.”

American Marco Andretti, edged by Sam Hornish for the Indy 500 title in 2006, was seventh with Brazil’s Vitor Meira and Japan’s Hideki Mutoh completing the third row and US veteran Ed Carpenter 10th on the inside of row four.

South African Tomas Schkecter took the 11th and last spot on offer after a nerve-wracking final hour that saw him withdraw his qualified car, put himself back in the slowest spot and watch two rivals fail to bump him out.

“This is the worst day at Indy,” Scheckter said. “It’s just like your life is up and down. Sometimes you feel alive. Sometimes you don’t. You keep your eye on every lap, on everybody who can pass you.”

Mutoh qualified only to have his car fail a technical inspection for not having a weight block in an unusued camera battery area, but requalified to bump out 19-year-old American Graham Rahal, who last month became the youngest winner in Indy-car history.

Rahal tried to requalify but was too slow and his pit crew thought he would not have another chance before qualifying ended.

Enough cars pulled out of the line to give Rahal a chance, and Scheckter helped by requalifying at a lower speed, but the crew had not changed tires so he was undone.

“The team made a mistake. They didn’t bring tires back out,” Rahal said. “They assumed we weren’t going to make it. I was ready to go. I was pretty confident we were going to make it. What a mistake to make.”

“Scheckter lowered the bump speed so much it was realistic we could have made it.”

(AFP)