Andretti tops first day at Elkhart Lake

Andretti beat rookie sensation Juan Montoya by nearly three-tenths of a second in a session that was dominated by red flags and a spectacular bit of acrobatics by Patrick Carpentier.

Following Montoya in the session were Carpentier, Memo Gidley and Greg Moore.

The track was washed free of rubber during severe storms last night and that was evident today as any number of drivers spun off course.

Carpentier was the luckiest man on the circuit today as he too had an off course excursion that pitched the car up and over several times.

An uninjured Carpentier said, 'You're flying at that point, about 200 miles an hour. I hit the gravel, the tyres dug in and I was up in the air.

Andretti, the defending pole sitter, was not happy with the results of the session today.

Like other drivers he lost a lot of track time due to red flag periods.

'This was definitely not the quickest we can go and it isn't the quickest the other guys can go either,' he said. 'That last red flag really hurt us.'

As the cars put more rubber on the track tomorrow during the practice session, the cars will, in theory, go a lot faster.

Andretti said he expected the times from the final qualifying session to be quite a bit better.

'I hope we can keep it up for tomorrow because it is going to take a lot more to get the pole tomorrow.'

Juan Montoya, the current points leader, turned in the second quick lap but was not satisfied with that time.

He said he would have turned in the fastest lap had it not been for Carpentier's accident.

The Target team had the wrong set up at the start of the qualifying session and went back tothe set up they'd used in the morning.

Roberto Moreno is making yet another appearance for the PacWest Racing team in the place of injured driver Mark Blundell.

Blundell was set to return to the circuit this weekend, but an MRI earlier this week revealed some lingering damage to his neck.

Moreno, a last minute substitution this weekend, was unable to make it to the track in time for this yesterday morning's session and was three seconds slower than Andretti.

Qualifying times from Elkhart Lake