Briscoe on Pole in Chicagoland

Ryan Briscoe backed up his pace in opening practice by snatching his third pole of 2010, taking the top spot on the grid for tomorrow night's Peak Antifreeze Indy 300. The Penske driver led Dario Franchitti, points leader Will Power, Helio Castroneves, and Marco Andretti, who along with teammate Ryan Hunter-Reay, continued their solid form from practice (Hunter-Reay will line up ninth).

"The car today was just spot on," explained a happy Briscoe. "I didn't want to be overconfident but I was thinking after that run, man, that's gotta be hard to beat. I knew we were fully trimmed out and the car felt really solid. It was a great qualifying run today and I'm just really hoping that we can follow through tomorrow and have another good race. We've been strong here the last couple of years and I really enjoy racing around here. It's always exciting. It's a completely wide track that's really smooth. It's got smooth transitions off the banking corners. It really promotes good racing so I always get excited to come back here."

Franchitti managed to start ahead of title rival Power, but couldn't grab that point for pole position. "Qualifying is a like an engineering exercise," he said. "It's getting all of those pieces into place and then if you miss one of them, or in Ryan's case, if you get them all just right, then you see the result. We'd like to have that extra point (for the pole) but we're starting up front and I think we have a pretty good car in race trim. One of the things we realize about these one-and-half mile races is really that anything can happen. It can just go completely bad at anytime. It would be nice to stay up front all night, but we're prepared for almost anything."

Power was content to grid third for tomorrow night's race. "The Verizon car felt really solid out there today. Our car is fast in race trim and this track is all about the racing. I am looking forward to tomorrow night. We have been knocking on the door on some of the earlier oval races and we are due for our first oval win."

Of note, Ed Carpenter, who sat out much of practice after scraping the turn four wall, qualified 11th. "We got off to a rocky start and didn't get to practice before qualifying. There's a big bump between Turn 3 and Turn 4 and we had a problem with the rear suspension that sent me off into the wall during practice this morning. It was unfortunate not to get in some track time but I knew the team set me up with a good car. I messed up the first lap in qualifying a little bit. For not practicing at all we did OK."

However, there aren't all smiles in that area of the grid. Scott Dixon, a favorite for the pole, ended the day a disappointing 15th.

On the other side, Graham Rahal and Tomas Scheckter showed solid speed, with Rahal taking sixth and Scheckter taking 17th.

"The Quick Trim car was really good," said Rahal, who finished fifth in this race last year. "The guys have been working hard. Obviously we showed up here with a good setup and it was nice. I haven't been on a 1.5 mile oval in almost a year. It was nice to have a good car to be confident and comfortable in. And the qualifying car was as good as we could have it. We're lacking a little bit of speed overall but we're pleased with the starting position. This is a big race for Quick Trim and the home event for the team. I think our race car is pretty quick. It would be nice to have a good result and even nicer to win one."

Tomorrow night's race is slated to roll of at 8:00 EST on Versus.

Full results of the 1st qualifying session on Chicagoland