Vision duo stunned by their pace

Ed Carpenter and AJ Foyt IV took career-best second and third places in Friday night's qualifying session for the IRL IndyCar Series season-opener.

Until losing time on his fourth lap, Carpenter had looked set to snatch pole from Ganassi driver Scott Dixon.

"I am not going to lie, our times surprised me," said the American. "As the run was going on, I was thinking that I couldn't remember exactly what Scott ran, but I know that we've got to be close or even ahead of him and I think we just missed it on the last lap.

"Either way, this team did such a good job all off-season. (Team manager) Larry Curry did some great things with some of the moves we made and the whole team from top to bottom put in their time over the winter and it shows.

"Now we just have to keep up the work and do a good job tomorrow night and the rest of the season."

Foyt IV agreed that the results were a pleasant surprise for the team owned by IRL founder Tony George.

"It's unbelievable," he said. "The crew has just done a great job. I am completely shocked. I knew we had a strong car, but I didn't know if we could be that strong.

"With the new format in qualifying and seeing a couple of the guys before us crash, I was kind of nervous, but we had a great car like we've had all day so I'm really excited about it. It's just great for the team and really shows the work we've put in this off-season."

Dixon admitted that he had never expected his pole to come under threat from the Vision drivers.

"There were a bunch of guys we didn't think we would have to worry about who ended up having some big laps," Dixon said.

"Kudos to the Vision team for second and third. That's a big deal. We will see about tomorrow. There could be plenty of interesting things tomorrow."