By Andrew Cutler
April 4 2009

Graham Rahal began the defense of his 2008 St. Petersburg race victory in fine fashion today by claiming the pole after the three round, "knockout" qualifying session. Last year, at age 19 and three months, Graham became the youngest winner in IndyCar history: Today, just slightly less than 1 full year later, he becomes the youngest ever driver to qualify on the pole.

Rahal will be joined on the front row by Justin Wilson (his teammate from last year), who put in a stellar showing for the normally back-of-the-pack running Dale Coyne Racing squad.

One driver who certianly didn't have a stellar day was defending series champion Scott Dixon, who struggled with a "loose" car & qualifed in 8th. The only incident came in the 2nd round of qualifying, when rookie Mike Conway clipped the barriers at turn 9, which caused him to loose control & crash into the barriers at Turn 10.

Here is the complete starting grid for Sunday's race. Tv coverage begins at 2pm ET/6pm GMT on the Versus network (I am still uncertian as to what level of streaming video feed will be available at www.indycar.com.)

http://www.indycar.com/stats/startinglineups/2009/stpete_04042009.pdf

p.s.:

To those of you who watched the qualifiactions via video streaming on the indycar website: Yes, that was a bit of a mess re: the audio feed. Just remember, this was the first time that Versus & the IMS radio network have tried to work togeather. I am confident that, come to weeks from now at Long Beach, things will go a WHOLE lot smoother!