Sam Hornish Jr. wins the Peak Antifreeze Indy 300 pole position with a 215.319 mph run, red and white cars fill the first two rows for the championship run Sunday...

IndyCar Photo by Jim Haines

Here's AJ Foyt IV at speed in the #27 Klein Tools/Canadian Club AGR car usually driven by Dario Franchitti.

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Sam Hornish Jr. managed to bleed off the least amount of speed from his best practice result to win the pole position for the Peak Antifreeze Indy 300 at Chicagoland Speedway this afternoon. Conversely, teammate Helio Castroneves lost 2.1 mph but managed to hold 4th on the grid as his closest rival, Scott Sharp lost even more speed. the drivers were blaming cooler temperatures (4 degrees) and higher wind (5 mph, but perhaps at a more critical angle), but I expect most of them posted speeds that were more draft related than others.

AJ Foyt IV out qualified his three AGR teammates (11th), and AGR changed engines between practice and qualifying on the Kanaan and Herta cars. Danica Patrick lost more "Q" speed than most to run a 211 mph lap and will again start along side of Sarah Fisher in the "woman's row," but faster than three of the guys. Vitor Meira, at least 7th best in the practice "combined behind Kosuke Matsuura will start 6th, with Tomas Scheckter 7th. Matsuura will start 8th and the RLR duo of Rice and Simmons round out the top ten. Here's the Indycar "Q" session T&S chart.

Pos

Driver

Diff

Best Time

Best Speed

Best Lap

1

Sam Hornish Jr (6)

...

25.4134

215.319

2

2

Scott Dixon (9)

0.0862

25.4996

214.592

1

3

Dan Wheldon (10)

0.1105

25.5239

214.387

2

4

Helio Castroneves (3)

0.1660

25.5794

213.922

1

5

Scott Sharp (8)

0.2078

25.6212

213.573

2

6

Vitor Meira (4)

0.2197

25.6331

213.474

1

7

Tomas Scheckter (2)

0.2738

25.6872

213.024

2

8

Kosuke Matsuura (55)

0.3112

25.7246

212.715

2

9

Buddy Rice (15)

0.3197

25.7331

212.644

2

10

Jeff Simmons (17)

0.3758

25.7892

212.182

1

11

AJ Foyt IV (27)

0.3785

25.7919

212.160

1

12

Ed Carpenter (20)

0.3866

25.8000

212.093

1

13

Tony Kanaan (11)

0.4296

25.8430

211.740

1

14

Marco Andretti (26)

0.4774

25.8908

211.349

1

15

Danica Patrick (16)

0.5015

25.9149

211.153

2

16

Sarah Fisher (5)

0.5276

25.9410

210.940

2

17

Jeff Bucknum (14)

0.5572

25.9706

210.700

2

18

Bryan Herta (7)

0.5598

25.9732

210.679

1

19

Marty Roth (25)

0.6794

26.0928

209.713

2

Qualifying is about to begin, amazingly, throughout the season Team Penske drivers have been able to post qualifying speeds considerably faster than they practiced, and usually faster then the other teams that posted tow enhanced results they couldn't back up. To me that's a sure sign how much better they are than the rest of the field on the ovals, including TCGR. They have been so good that they have forced TCGR to rush pit stops, making mistakes that caused them loose races on at least 6 occasions. Here's this afternoons qualifying order and best speeds of the day.

Peak Antifreeze Indy 300 Qualifying...
(*) indicates speed from 2nd practice session

Car

Driver                                                               
6  Sam Hornish Jr. (216.037*) 215.319, less than a mph off his best of the day, I was suspect of Helio's run, feeling he lost too much speed.

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9 Scott Dixon (216.752) 214.592, another 2 mph loss, Dixon's practice speeds are usually faster than he qualifies, but watching him tight to the white line all the way around perhaps he was pinching the car.

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10 Dan Wheldon (216.687) 214.387, close to Dixon, who HAD been the fastest of the day.

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3  Helio Castroneves (216.033) 213.922, that's a loss of speed not seen elsewhere this year. More than once this year this team had exceeded their practice speeds tow or not. Davey Hamilton of the radio crew thinks the top-4 is set, I think Vitor, out last will have something to say about that, perhaps Carpenter as well.

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8 Scott Sharp (215.752) 213.573, way off his best practice result.

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4 Vitor Meira (214.586*) 213,474, Vitor dropped a little too much speed and will probably start 6th.

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2 Tomas Scheckter (213.778*) 212.783, Tomas within a mph of his best practice speed, best so far.

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55 Kosuke Matsuura (214.970) 212.715, another 2-mph plus drop.

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15 Buddy Rice (213.682) 212.664, close to a mph drop from practice speeds, better than most,. It would have been better if he wasn't so slow in practice.

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17  Jeff Simmons (214.152*) 212.182, a 2-mph drop won't get it, some drivers must have more tow-related practice bests than others.

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27  AJ Foyt IV (212.941*) 212.160, lost about the same amount of speed as top qualifying Hornish, again the practice speeds were the issue. He's 9th now, I think he'll end up 11th.

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20 Ed Carpenter (213.941*) 212.093, lost too much speed.

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11 Tony Kanaan (212.500), pulled off the track after a new engine leak check lap. 211.740.

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26 Marco Andretti (212.398*) 211.349, as with Rice he didn't bleed off as much speed, but he had less to loose.

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16 Danica Patrick (213.442) 211.153, I'm glad I don't have to do that post qualifying interview.

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5 Sarah Fisher (212.147*) 210.940, Fisher lost 1.5 mph, and could start next to Danica again.

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14 Jeff Bucknum (212.484*) 210.700

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7 Bryan Herta (212.902*) Missed turn, also due to an engine change. 210.679, Foyt IV fastest of the four AGR drivers. I wonder if after both Kanaan and Herta ran slower than Foyt AGR felt it HAD to be because of the engines and changed them. Tony practiced 150 miles, but Herta only ran 128. Foyt ran 222 miles.

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25 Marty Roth (212.389) 208.713 from a guy that must have drafted his way to that 212.3.

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(1:00, EDT) The 2nd session has ended, here's the final IndyCar T&S chart. Vitor Meira was the fastest of the 2nd group drivers, and nudged his top speed of the day up a bit. Simmons in 7th got a speed boost as well, as did Ed Carpenter. AJ Foyt IV is 12th on the chart and is the fastest AGR driver on the day, but just barely. Qualifying will begin at 6:00 EDT, 5:00 at the track. Current conditions are an almost perfect 72 degrees, it could be even cooler by then and we could see some faster speeds.

Pos

Driver

 

Best Time

Best Speed

 

 

 

Total miles

1

Dan Wheldon (10)

 

25.2750

216.499

 

 

 

170

2

Sam Hornish Jr (6)

 

25.3290

216.037

 

 

 

149

3

Scott Dixon (9)

 

25.3358

215.979

 

 

 

149

4

Helio Castroneves (3)

 

25.4289

215.188

 

 

 

153

5

Vitor Meira (4)

 

25.5003

214.586

 

 

 

117

6

Scott Sharp (8)

 

25.5123

214.485

 

 

 

156

7

Jeff Simmons (17)

 

25.5519

214.152

 

 

 

161

8

Ed Carpenter (20)

 

25.5771

213.941

 

 

 

111

9

Kosuke Matsuura (55)

 

25.5867

213.861

 

 

 

138

10

Tomas Scheckter (2)

 

25.5967

213.778

 

 

 

144