Dixon secures pole at Homestead

Ganassi driver Dixon, who lost the 2007 season championship to Dario Franchitti on the final lap of the final race last year, watched Vision's Ed Carpenter come extremely close to knocking him off the top spot, before falling short on the last of his four laps. That gave Dixon the pole with a four-lap average of 213.341mph.

The duel between Dixon and Carpenter overshadowed a crash involving Dixon's teammate Dan Wheldon, who will try to win a record fourth consecutive Homestead race from the back of the 25-car field.

The last-second drama and Wheldon's crash upheld both sides of the controversy surrounding the series' new oval qualifying format, which increased each driver's qualifying laps from two to four. Critics say the format took too long and gave an inordinate advantage to the drivers and cars that went later in the qualifying.

Wheldon was not injured when he crashed at Turn 4 during his qualifying attempt, but having been fastest in practice, he will start 25th in tomorrow night's race.

Carpenter and Vision teammate AJ Foyt IV provided the bulk of the drama when they began to threaten the top qualifiers late in the session. Foyt, the 22nd driver on the track, put himself second behind Dixon with a four-lap average of 212.211 mph. Carpenter then topped Dixon for three of the four laps before his pace slipped by a full tenth of a second on his fourth lap.

"What a crazy qualifying session," Dixon said. "Two big crashes and a new format. It was pretty interesting.

"To win the first qualifying session after unification, that doesn't mean much. If we win the first race, that means something totally different."

Jay Howard also crashed during the elongated qualifying procedure, seriously damaging the No.24 Roth Racing Dallara-Honda and injuring his right knee. He has not yet been given medical clearance to race, while his team are trying to piece together the car.

Others who showed speed in the new format included Danica Patrick, who had P1 briefly before Dixon topped her speed and will start fourth, and Team Penske newcomer Ryan Briscoe, who will start fifth.

His teammate Helio Castroneves took seventh, with Patrick's Andretti-Green Racing stablemates Marco Andretti, Tony Kanaan and Hideki Mutoh securing sixth, eighth and ninth places respectively - Mutoh the fastest of the rookies.

Howard's teammate and team owner Marty Roth demonstrated his eponymous squad's winter progress with a career-best 10th on the grid.

The eight former Champ Car entries were all towards the tail of the field, with Conquest Racing's Franck Perera, KV Racing's Oriol Servia and Newman Haas Lanigan's Justin Wilson the best amongst them. They are all effectively treating the Homestead weekend as an extended test session after their hurried build-ups to the new season.

The new era has its share of worry: only two of the ex-Champ Car drivers - Servia and Bruno Junqueira - have extensive oval experience, and none has experience in the IndyCar Series' heavy-downforce, inches-apart formula.

The slowest IndyCar regular, Milka Duno (Dreyer & Reinbold), is ahead of five of the former Champ Car drivers, and Wheldon - with perhaps the fastest car in the field - will start last.

Pos  Driver             Team                 Speed
 1.  Scott Dixon        Ganassi              213.341
 2.  Ed Carpenter       Vision               213.311
 3.  AJ Foyt IV         Vision               212.211
 4.  Danica Patrick     Andretti-Green       212.129
 5.  Ryan Briscoe       Penske               212.108
 6.  Marco Andretti     Andretti-Green       211.838
 7.  Helio Castroneves  Penske               211.581
 8.  Tony Kanaan        Andretti-Green       211.580
 9.  Hideki Mutoh       Andretti-Green       211.508
10.  Marty Roth         Roth                 211.458
11.  Ryan Hunter-Reay   Rahal-Letterman      210.744
12.  Vitor Meira        Panther              210.315
13.  Buddy Rice         Dreyer & Reinbold    209.486
14.  Darren Manning     Foyt                 209.319
15.  Franck Perera      Conquest             209.230
16.  Oriol Servia       KV                   209.021
17.  Justin Wilson      Newman Haas Lanigan  208.757
18.  Milka Duno         Dreyer & Reinbold    208.308
19.  Enrique Bernoldi   Conquest             208.130
20.  Ernesto Viso       HVM                  208.101
21.  Will Power         KV                   208.029
22.  Bruno Junqueira    Dale Coyne           207.434
23.  Mario Moraes       Dale Coyne           207.067
24.  Jay Howard         Roth                 -
25.  Dan Wheldon        Ganassi              -