Castroneves leads Penske front row

Castroneves scored his third consecutive pole position today with a lap of 28.1115 seconds - 189.531 mph - in the No. 3 Penske Honda/Dallara, just 0.025 seconds better than teammate Hornish and enough to start from the pole position for Sunday's Meijer Indy 300 at Kentucky Speedway.

"It's good when you're not satisfied to be second," Castroneves said. "That means you're definitely in a good team and you've got good momentum. But qualifying is one thing, and racing is another. We need to focus on this race."

Castroneves leads Hornish by just eight points in the IRL standings with three races remaining. Their closest challengers - Target Chip Ganassi's Dan Wheldon and Scott Dixon - will start third and fifth, respectively, on Sunday afternoon.

Tony Kanaan will start fourth, and Andretti Green teammate Dario Franchitti will start sixth.

Hornish, who will start second for the fifth consecutive race, has three poles and three wins this season.

However, two troublesome finishes in the past three races - 13th because of a crash at Nashville and 14th because of a mechanical failure at Michigan - have dropped Hornish out of the points lead.

"It's back and forth," Hirnish said. "It doesn't take a lot to affect the points race one way or another. We've both been fast wherever we've gone.

"When you look at it, the streaks have a big impact. One bad day or one wrong thing can drop you to fourth in the standings."

So dominant were the Penske cars in qualifying, Wheldon was nearly 0.15 seconds behind Hornish - a huge discrepancy by IRL standards. By comparison, the next eight cars on the grid, beginning with Wheldon, were separated by slightly more than 0.12 seconds.

"We're disappointed, of course, to find ourselves behind the Penskes," Wheldon said. "The bottom line is that we're going to have to dig deep and make the most of every opportunity, but more importantly, to make opportunities. This team is certainly motivated to do that."

It was the first pole position at Kentucky for Castroneves and Penske in five years of competition at the track.

It also gave the team hope for a positive outcome; Castroneves has won twice from the pole this season, including an impressive win July 30 at Michigan.

"The whole team has been working hard," Carstroneves said. "That's what happens when you have an advantage.

"Some people might think, 'OK, we're fine,' but other teams might keep working. We didn't take it easy. We started looking at small details and we're learning from our mistakes."

Following Franchitti's third-row position were Kosuke Matsuura in seventh, Ed Carpenter in eighth, Vitor Meira in ninth and Scott Sharp in 10th.

The two female drivers in Sunday's race - Danica Patrick and Sarah Fisher - will start together on the sixth row.

The race will mark the first time two women have started an IndyCar race since Fisher and Lyn St. James raced together in the 2000 Indianapolis 500.

Sunday's race will be Fisher's first in an IRL car since she competed in the Indy 500 in 2004. Since the announcement was made that she would be driving the Dreyer & Reinbold entry at Kentucky, Fisher has immersed herself in a familiar subject.

"Last night I was dreaming about cars," Fisher said. "You get one step ahead and it's all you're thinking about, then you go to bed thinking about it. That's what you wake up thinking about."

For Castroneves, who has won five pole positions this season, the speed continues into the homestretch. "For now," he said. "It's nobody's championship."

Pos  Driver             Time      Speed  
 1.  Helio Castroneves  24.4037   218.328
 2.  Sam Hornish Jr.    24.4060   218.307
 3.  Dan Wheldon        24.5526   217.003
 4.  Tony Kanaan        24.5795   216.766
 5.  Scott Dixon        24.5856   216.712
 6.  Dario Franchitti   24.5909   216.666
 7.  Kosuke Matsuura    24.6220   216.392
 8.  Ed Carpenter       24.6223   216.389
 9.  Vitor Meira        24.6459   216.182
10.  Scott Sharp        24.6793   215.889
11.  Danica Patrick     24.7289   215.456
12.  Sarah Fisher       24.7744   215.061
13.  Bryan Herta        24.7827   214.989
14.  Buddy Rice         24.8344   214.541
15.  Jeff Simmons       24.8364   214.524
16.  Jeff Bucknum       24.8429   214.468
17.  Tomas Scheckter    24.8861   214.095
18.  Marco Andretti     24.8999   213.977
19.  Marty Roth         24.9716   213.362