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Homestead-Miami Qualifying Results
By Andrew Cutler March 29 2008
The 2008 IndyCar season got underway on Friday evening as 25 drivers made qualification runs for Saturday night's GAINSCO Indy 300 at Homestead-Miami Speedway. It was the first time for the new "Indy 500 style" qualifications, where a driver's four lap average determined their grid slot.

The results yielded a few suprises as Ed Carpenter and A.J. Foyt IV of Vision Racing, usually a mid-pack squad, will find themselves lining up 2nd and 3rd on the grid, behind pole sitter Scott Dixon. "I am not going to lie, our times surprised me," Carpenter said afterwards. "I knew we could run in the 212s, but to turn 213s (he qualified at 213.311, just 0.03 slower than Dixon) was surprising". Also impressive was the 10th place qualifying effort for Marty Roth, a driver/owner who's underfunded team is usually a backmarker.

Dixon's Ganassi Racing teammate Dan Wheldon had a disappointing night, crashing during his warm-up lap. "I got loose in Turns 3 and 4 and just couldn't catch it," said Wheldon, who was uninjured. "It's a shame because I was up on my lap." He will start 24th, just ahead of Roth's teammate Jay Howard, who also wrecked.

Franck Perera proved to be the fastest of the drivers from the former CCWS teams, qualifying 15th with an average speed of 209.230. "It was good," said Perera, driving the No. 34 car. "I've only done two days of testing here and practice today so to be top 15 in this field is very satisfying. It's good for my first time qualifying on an oval. I want to thank Conquest Racing for the great job they did to get us here. The race will be tough but if we drive intelligent and stay out of trouble we can finish in a good place."

You can find the complete qualifying results here:

http://www.indycar.com/grid/ 

The drivers of the Firestone Indy Lights series also spent Friday dealing with qualifications, for their season-opening Miami 100, set to run on Saturday afternoon. Newcommer Raphael Matos put his car, from Andretti/Green's Indy Lights squad, on the pole with a two lap average of 186.899 mph. "This just proves to everybody that we can get the job done. It feels great to start up front. It's really important at this track. I hope we can keep it clean and finish the race well to collect points". 

 

 

 

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