Texas qualifying: Brack runs 233 for pole

"I don't really think I had more knowledge of this track," Brack said. "I do know I got all I could out of the car. It felt good. But I think everyone will have this place figured out by Sunday."

Brack topped 236mph with the aid of a tow in Saturday morning practice, and he lost less than 3mph running on his own as Ford-Cosworth powered the first four cars. Patrick Carpentier qualified second, followed by Oriol Servia and Bryan Herta.

"We were a little faster in these cars than I expected to be," remarked Brack, who raced at Texas five times in the Indy Racing League between 1997 and '99. "We tested here at 221mph in December, and I know that they shaved down some of the bumps on the track since then. But I didn't think we would be 12mph faster."

Brack's lap smashed the official TMS lap record of 225.979mph set by Billy Boat in a 4.0-litre IRL car in 1998. The IRL lap speeds were cut by about 8 mph when the league went to a 3.5-litre engine in 2000.

"It's hard to tell what to expect in the race because so many of the drivers have never run here before," Brack said, adding that he expected the race pace to exceed the qualifying pace. "I know what to expect, but we all have to be very gracious to each other and not run like we usually do, because this place can bite you."

Carpentier said his broken left wrist bothered him on Friday morning, but it has improved throughout the weekend.

"We put some foam on the steering wheel to help with the vibration and it seems to have helped quite a bit," remarked the French-Canadian. "But I've only done about 10 laps at a time. We'll have to see how it stands up over 600 kilometres."

Servia's Ford-Cosworth engine blew up during his second qualifying lap, but the Spaniard already had a 232.978mph lap in the bank.

"The car has been good all weekend," he said. "The engine blew up on the second lap, but I feel lucky because it didn't happen on the first lap. The Sigma team is new, and we just have to put a full weekend together."

Bryan Herta silenced those who say he can't run on fast ovals by qualifying his Zakspeed/Forsythe Reynard fourth fastest, ahead of surprising Japanese second year man Shinji Nakano in the top Honda-powered car.

Alex Zanardi was sixth, heading Gil de Ferran, Alex Tagliani, Christian Fittipaldi and Paul Tracy.

Those disappointed by their qualifying runs included weekend pacesetter Tony Kanaan (14th), Dario Franchitti (16th), and American oval aces Michael Andretti and Jimmy Vasser (19th and 22nd).