By Andrew Cutler
August 8 2010

All that Will Power has to do today at Mid-Ohio to wrap up the IndyCar Series' inaugural Mario Andretti Road Championship is to take the green flag at the start of the race. He will see that flag first after capturing a record-trying seventh Pole start in one season (with five races remaining in 2010) - and this after crashing in the Saturday morning practice session!

After Power backed the car hard into the tire barriers near Turn 1, the Team Penske crew got to work putting his preferred 'set up' into the spare car. After surviving the first two rounds of knock-out qualifying, the Aussie was comfortable enough in the car to go out and dominate the final session.

“All I did was obviously go over the data that my teammates had in that session and just did everything I could mentally to prepare and did my best. Obviously, I didn't suffer in Turn 1 because I was lacking confidence. You just got to put that out of your head and get it done. I was not sure going into this qualifying session, but I just put my head down, did my best, tried to get through each section.”

Dario Franchitti will start alongside Power on Row One. Former F1 driver Takuma Sato continued to show that he is settling in at KV Racing by claiming the third grid spot.

Here is the complete starting grid for today's race, which begins at 3pm ET/8pm GMT: http://www.indycar.com/var/assets/hondaindy200startinglineup.pdf

The IndyCar Series schedule is essentially one half ovals and one half road/street races.While the overall season championship still remains the ultimate goal of every driver, the IRL has (starting this year) established a way to also recognize the driver who proves to be the best each year at either discipline. In honor of two of AOWR's legendary former competitors, the Road Championship is named after Mario Andretti, and the Oval Championship is named after A.J. Foyt.

Martin Plowman notched his first Pole position during qualifying for the Firestone Indy Lights Series support race. the FIL event can be viewed via live video streaming at www.indycar.com starting at 12:30 pm ET/5:30 pm GMT.