Rahal fastest in first practice

KV Racing's Will Power completed a one-two for the so-called transition drivers by taking second behind Newman/Haas/Lanigan driver Rahal.

Both drivers benefited from an additional practice session for rookies and transition teams yesterday, as did Andretti Green Racing's Hideki Mutoh, who took third this morning.

Penske's Helio Castroneves and Indianapolis 500 winner Scott Dixon (Ganassi) had traded the top spot early on before first Power, then Rahal, took over at the head of the timesheets. Castroneves and Dixon ended the session fourth and fifth respectively, ahead of Marco Andretti (AGR) and Ryan Briscoe in the second Penske Dallara.

Completing a promising morning for the transition teams, HVM's EJ Viso and Conquest's Enrique Bernoldi took eighth and 10th, sandwiching Vitor Meira (Panther Racing).

The session was interrupted by several yellows for track inspections, but the main incidents were caused by the two Roth Racing cars. John Andretti brushed the Turn 1 wall in the final 20 minutes, and then his teammate and team owner Marty Roth brought the session to a premature end by crashing heavily at Turn 2 with five minutes remaining.

"We're still assessing the damage and seeing if we can have it fixed and see if we can race it," Roth said.

"It was definitely an unfortunate practice session for Roth Racing with both cars coming in tangled up. John's car will definitely be out for the next session, and we're looking at mine.

"We think we had either a shock (absorber) or a weight-jacker go down. The car was really starting to perform pretty good, then it started picking up a push and kept getting worse. It progressed quite rapidly and the thing just came around on me."

Pos  Driver             Team                 Time             Laps
 1.  Graham Rahal       Newman/Haas/Lanigan  21.9381          65
 2.  Will Power         KV                   22.0587  0.1206  71
 3.  Hideki Mutoh       Andretti Green       22.0765  0.1384  80
 4.  Helio Castroneves  Penske               22.0946  0.1565  78
 5.  Scott Dixon        Ganassi              22.1009  0.1628  69
 6.  Marco Andretti     Andretti Green       22.1169  0.1788  81
 7.  Ryan Briscoe       Penske               22.1682  0.2301  87
 8.  EJ Viso            HVM                  22.2215  0.2834  68
 9.  Vitor Meira        Panther              22.2559  0.3178  77
10.  Enrique Bernoldi   Conquest             22.2854  0.3473  71
11.  Bruno Junqueira    Dale Coyne           22.3014  0.3633  74
12.  Tony Kanaan        Andretti Green       22.3382  0.4001  57
13.  Justin Wilson      Newman/Haas/Lanigan  22.3467  0.4086  68
14.  Oriol Servia       KV                   22.4669  0.5288  63
15.  Darren Manning     Foyt                 22.4977  0.5596  63
16.  Danica Patrick     Andretti Green       22.5482  0.6101  74
17.  Ed Carpenter       Vision               22.6934  0.7553  93
18.  Dan Wheldon        Ganassi              22.7305  0.7924  80
19.  AJ Foyt IV         Vision               22.7715  0.8334  77
20.  Buddy Rice         Dreyer & Reinbold    22.8105  0.8724  55
21.  Ryan Hunter-Reay   Rahal Letterman      23.0836  1.1455  55
22.  Townsend Bell      Dreyer & Reinbold    23.2367  1.2986  54
23.  Jaime Camara       Conquest             23.2680  1.3299  80
24.  John Andretti      Roth                 23.3718  1.4337  37
25.  Mario Moraes       Dale Coyne           23.4602  1.5221  70
26.  Mario Dominguez    Pacific Coast        23.4813  1.5432  61
27.  Marty Roth         Roth                 23.8792  1.9411  87