Brack fastest on Friday morning

Championship leader Brack has taken only a handful of points from the last four races and needs a result to regain he momentum he enjoyed in May and June, when he finished second at Nazareth then scored back-to-back wins in Japan and Milwaukee.

Brack's quick lap this morning took just 31.809secs for an average speed of 226.351mph. This was a little over a second and eight-mph slower than Paul Tracy's track record set in qualifying for last year's race.

CART has mandated a reduction in boost from the normal 37 inches to 36 inches for this race and the California 500 at the end of the year. A new mk3 version of the Handford wing is also required this weekend. The new wing has an additional three-inch extension to the backboard or vertical extension below the wing designed to slow the cars by adding drag. The backboard is now nine inches deep.

Another change for this weekend is a return to the extended 'pop-off' valve with a three-quarter inch space added to the base of the manifold pressure relief valve. This valve was in use for last month's races at Detroit, Portland and Cleveland. The standard 'pop-off' valve was required four last weekend's race in Toronto but a return to the 'spacer valve' was mandated by CART on Monday of this week.

The change appears to have helped the Ford and Toyota teams, with Ford-powered cars taking the top three places in Friday morning's opening practice, followed by two Toyota-powered cars. Forsythe team mates Patrick Carpentier and Alex Tagliani continued to show good form by turning the second and third quickest laps this morning.

Fastest Honda-powered driver was Helio Castroneves in sixth place, but he was the only Honda driver in the top 10 this morning.

The session was stopped early due to Roberto Moreno's high-speed crash.