Hunter-Reay sets pace

"It feels great to have a guaranteed front row starting spot," he said. "The day was a bit of a struggle for us, really. In practice all we did was a bunch of in and out laps and we didn't really get any track time. My team-mate [Mario Dominguez] had a rear wing failure so we had to make sure that wasn't going to happen on my car. Then the radio didn't work, and in the [pre-qualifying] warm-up I had a lot of understeer.

"We made some big changes for qualifying and the car was so much better. I think I was only on my second lap when the red flag came out, so I know we could have gone quite a bit quicker. But the team did a great job to turn our day around."

Hunter-Reay won in dominant fashion at Milwaukee in June, but since then has struggled to match the pace of team-mate Dominguez, nevermind trouble the Newman/Haas and Forsythe teams. He said a productive test at Road America two months ago was the basis for his improved form this weekend.

Bruno Junqueira is always in his element at the demanding four-mile road course - he won here in 2001 and again last year - but had no answer for Hunter-Reay as the session built up to an exciting climax. Junqueira clocked the second fastest time, but went off at the first corner in the dying minutes and had to forfeit his best lap, relegating him to third on the
overnight grid.

"It was a difficult session," said the Brazilian. "We had a problem with the gearbox in qualifying - it was not downshifting well. I had a problem downshifting on the first set of tyres and went wide onto the grass. On the second set the car didn't downshift, then when it did my rear wheels locked and I went off the track and into the gravel trap and brought out the red
flag. I feel we need to improve the car - it doesn't feel as good as last year."

Junqueira's miscue promoted Patrick Carpentier to second in the leading Forsythe entry. The French-Canadian pronounced himself happy with his car following some drastic set-up changes prior to qualifying, and is hoping to regain his early-season momentum after a mechanical failure at Cleveland and an incident with a backmarker last time out in Vancouver.

Sebastien Bourdais was fourth quickest in the second Newman/Haas car, but was far from satisfied with that after topping the morning times by a remarkable 1.4s. It transpired that the Frenchman's stunning practice lap may have been flattered by a mysterious engine problem that gave him a temporary extra surge of turbo boost!

"The car was good enough to be on pole today, but things didn't go our way," he said. "We didn't get as many laps as we wanted and the red flags hurt us."

Jimmy Vasser posted the fifth quickest time, but his PKV Racing Lola was found to be under the weight limit in scrutineering and he was sent to the back. That elevated RuSPORT's AJ Allmendinger to fifth, just ahead of Conquest Racing's Justin Wilson, his main rival in the Rookie of the Year standings.

Oriol Servia was next up for Dale Coyne Racing, ahead of the improving Rodolfo Lavin in the Corona-backed Forsythe car. Michel Jourdain Jr and Mario Dominguez rounded out the top 10. Defending series champion Paul Tracy was the most notable victim of untimely red-flag interruptions and found himself mired in a lowly 13th place.

Guy Smith admitted he was finding the learning curve steep on his Champ Car debut, ending the day in 16th place, but the Brit kept his nose clean unlike team-mate Alex Tagliani. The French-Canadian made a mistake in the fast Hurry Downs section during practice and did extensive damage to the rear end of his Rocketsports car, sidelining him from qualifying while the team effected repairs.