Practice 2: Kanaan keeps it up

After qualifying third on Friday, Kanaan set the mark at 61.601 seconds (96.252 mph) midway through the 75-minute Saturday session, and four drivers got within a tenth of a second of that time - Scott Dixon (61.617), Friday pole man Adrian Fernandez (61.620), Cristiano da Matta (61.671) and Kenny Brack (61.699). Then it was a comparatively massive 0.4 seconds back to Christian Fittipaldi.

Overnight work has made the rough Denver track slightly smoother, though drivers reported that the grip level is still very low. But the track conditions were helped by the lack of red flags during the session, which was interrupted only twice for spins by Paul Tracy and Alex Tagliani.

Tagliani and his team-mate Pat Carpentier continued to struggle at the not-so-sharp end of the grid, running a second off Kanaan's pace in 14th and 15th place. They fared better than Dario Franchitti, who completed 36 laps but couldn't better 63.057 seconds.

CART has announced that Sunday's race length has been cut from 115 to 100 laps to ensure a decent number of finishers in the hot, high-altitude conditions.