Wheldon beats Hornish for Indy 300 pole

[The General]

HOMESTEAD, Fla. --Dan Wheldon turned the tables on Sam Hornish Jr. Friday night at Homestead-Miami Speedway, taking the pole position for the season-opening IndyCar Series race from the driver who beat him out - barely - for the 2006 series championship.

Hornish won his third title last season, keeping Wheldon from winning his second, in a tiebreaker. Hornish grabbed the crown because he won four races to Wheldon's two.

At Homestead, where Hornish has won three times and Wheldon has won the last two IndyCar races, it was nearly as close in qualifying, with Wheldon's fast lap of 214.322 just fast enough to beat Hornish's 214.298. The time difference between the two fast laps on the 1.5-mile oval was .0028-seconds.

Asked who is the driver to beat in Saturday night's season-opening XM Satellite Radio Indy 300, Hornish said, "I'd say Wheldon is the guy to beat, especially with his history here and the way he's running."

When Wheldon was told what Hornish said, he didn't hesitate: "I think he's the guy to beat.

"It's a good rivalry," he added. "I have tremendous amount of respect for Sam. And it does seem like we're attached at the hip. It seems like the 6 (Hornish) and the 10 (Wheldon) are always inches apart."

Dario Franchitti was third at 213.714, followed by Andretti Green Racing teammates Tony Kanaan at 213.474 and Marco Andretti, last year's top rookie, at 212.754.

All three AGR drivers were satisfied after the qualifying, getting the year off to a decent start after watching Penske Racing drivers Hornish and Helio Castroneves and Target Chip Ganassi Racing drivers Wheldon and Scott Dixon dominate last season, winning 12 of 14 races.

"I have a good race car and, as long as I'm starting close to the front, I'm happy," Franchitti said. "After last year, we're on a mission because we struggled and we didn't enjoy it. It was horrible. We need to be more competitive."

The fourth member of the team, newcomer Danica Patrick, was far less pleased after qualifying 14th at 211.431 after turning practice speeds than 1 mph faster.

"I was just slow," she said, shrugging. "The car felt great. It felt very stuck, very stable. I don't understand why it went so slow. This better not be the way it goes. It's frustrating.

"We were thinking top six, top eight, no problem. It went well in the last practice and this is all we have to show for it."

Sarah Fisher, the other woman in the 20-car field, wound up considerably better, qualifying ninth at 212.501.

A year ago, rookie Paul Dana was killed in a two-car crash during the 30-minute warmup, hours before the race. Since then, series officials have done away with the race-day warmups.

Not everyone was happy about it.

Jeff Simmons, who replaced Dana at Rahal Letterman Racing, qualified 16th and noted he would like to have more time on the track to figure out the car.

"That was pathetic," Simmons said of his qualifying performance. "We haven't run together with the other cars in a group and we still need to work out some things. But, everybody in the same situation."

Neither Wheldon nor Hornish was very concerned about going straight from qualifying to the race.

"If I was selfish, for me, I think it's better," Wheldon said. "My engineer, Andy Brown, and all the engineering staff at Ganassi, I think they have a good understanding of what I need from a race car and what Scott (Dixon) needs from a race car.

"But I think it does create some disparity among some of the cars that are not as well prepared as us."

Hornish, who has been trying his hand in NASCAR's Busch Series, running a handful of races for boss Roger Penske, said, "Running three Busch races since the last time I ran an IndyCar race, that's the way it's done. They qualify and then NASCAR impounds the car and then you start the race.

"So I'm kind of used to that schedule. There's a little more tweaking we need to do with the car, but we'll get it right by the time the race starts."

www.centredaily.com | 03/23/2007 | Wheldon beats Hornish for Indy 300 pole