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Power retains Surfers Paradise pole

Will Power took pole for the Surfers Paradise Champ Car race, sending the local crowd into a frenzy of alcohol-fuelled happiness

The Team Australia driver crossed the start finish line to complete his hot lap moments before the red flags were flown for Katherine Legge's spinning PKV Racing car. A few seconds later AJ Allmendinger set a faster time, but it was of course disallowed because of the red flags.

Paul Tracy had been the session pace-setter, albeit half a second off but Sebastien Bourdais set a quicker time - on the hard compound black-walled tyres - before having a huge crash that wiped out the front left corner of his car and brought out the red flags. Thus Seb's quickest time was deleted.

However when Power beat Tracy's time, PT no longer had his guaranteed front row slot (for being fastest in the session), and so Bourdais' quickest time from yesterday was enough to put him on the front row.

Paul Tracy will thus line up third, four places ahead of Allmendinger, while between them lie Bruno Junqueira (Newman/Haas), the impressive Nelson Philippe of CTE Racing-HVM, and PKV Racing's Oriol Servia.

Philippe's teammate Dan Clarke starts eighth, and has seen the gap to his Rookie of the Year rival Will Power increase to nine points, following the Australian's two points won for topping each qualifying session.

Antonio Pizzonia wrecked his car and chances of a top six qualifying slot after tearing off the right front corner of his car in the 15-minute pre-qualifying session.

Combined qualifying times:

Pos  Driver              Team                Time
 1.  Will Power          Team Australia      1:31.403
 2.  Sebastien Bourdais  Newman/Haas         1:31.774  + 0.371
 3.  Paul Tracy          Forsythe            1:31.959  + 0.556
 4.  Bruno Junqueira     Newman/Haas         1:32.265  + 0.862
 5.  Nelson Philippe     CTE - HVM           1:32.348  + 0.945
 6.  Oriol Servia        PKV                 1:32.371  + 0.968
 7.  AJ Allmendinger     Forsythe            1:32.536  + 1.133
 8.  Dan Clarke          CTE - HVM           1:32.821  + 1.418
 9.  Alex Tagliani       Team Australia      1:32.845  + 1.442
10.  Mario Dominguez     Rocketsports        1:32.974  + 1.571
11.  Ryan Briscoe        RuSPORT             1:33.043  + 1.640
12.  Andrew Ranger       Mi-Jack Conquest    1:33.564  + 2.161
13.  Antonio Pizzonia    Rocketsports        1:33.736  + 2.333
14.  Jan Heylen          Dale Coyne          1:34.182  + 2.779
15.  Charles Zwolsman    Mi-Jack Conquest    1:34.282  + 2.879
16.  Katherine Legge     PKV Racing          1:34.634  + 3.231
18.  Andreas Wirth       Dale Coyne          1:35.176  + 3.773

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