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Castroneves on Pole at the Glen

Helio Castroneves had taken pole position ahead of IRL's first ever race on the Wakins Glen road course

The Penske driver, who was fastest overall in yesterday's practice, won the 'Fast Six' shootout with a lap of 1:30.6688, after he finished second fastest in the single lap qualifying session.

IRL holds a single lap session on road coarses, with the fastest six drivers then holding a 10-minute shootout to determine the top three rows of the grid.

New Zealander Scott Dixon was fastest in the single lap qualifying, but come the shootout he dropped to fourth, two tenths of a second behind the pole-sitter.

Second on the grid is Italian Giorgio Pantano, who ended up a mere two hundredths of a second behind Castroneves, and the latter admitted he was certain Pantano was about to beat his time.

"When I got my pole lap, the track was getting better, and I was sure one of those guys was going beat me," Castroneves said. "When I heard Pantano was on the course for one last run, I was hoping he ate a lot of macaroni today...

"But we worked really hard, and we got what we wanted today."

Newly crowned IRL Champion Dan Wheldon qualified in 9th position, while Tony Kanaan and Sam Hornish Jr - both fighting for second place in the standings - qualified 7th and 11th respectively.

Hornish put down his low qualifying position down to the backup car he had to drive, after his primary car was damaged in a practice shunt.

"It's disappointing as the primary car was about a second and a half faster," said Hornish. "This afternoon was the first time we ran this car so I was a bit conservative to make sure we got a clean lap.

"But tomorrow is the day that counts. We just need to stay out of trouble and get to the end."

Pos  Driver              Make-Engine     Time
 1.  Helio Castroneves   Dallara-Toyota  1:30.6688
 2.  Giorgio Pantano     Panoz-Toyota    1:30.6903 + 0.0215
 3.  Patrick Carpentier  Dallara-Toyota  1:30.7889 + 0.1201
 4.  Scott Dixon         Panoz-Toyota    1:30.8783 + 0.2095
 5.  Tony Kanaan         Dallara-Honda   1:30.9576 + 0.2888
 6.  Dario Franchitti    Dallara-Honda   1:31.2215 + 0.5527
 7.  Vitor Meira         Panoz-Honda     1:32.5647 + 1.8959
 8.  Buddy Rice          Panoz-Honda     1:32.8638 + 2.1950
 9.  Dan Wheldon         Dallara-Honda   1:32.9704 + 2.3016
10.  Tomas Scheckter     Dallara-Chevy   1:33.0504 + 2.3816
11.  Sam Hornish Jr.     Dallara-Toyota  1:33.3512 + 2.6824
12.  Tomas Enge          Dallara-Chevy   1:33.3885 + 2.7197
13.  Alex Barron         Dallara-Toyota  1:33.4835 + 2.8147
14.  Bryan Herta         Dallara-Honda   1:33.6694 + 3.0006
15.  Kosuke Matsuura     Panoz-Honda     1:33.7564 + 3.0876
16.  Danica Patrick      Panoz-Honda     1:33.8566 + 3.1878
17.  Roger Yasukawa      Dallara-Honda   1:34.5492 + 3.8804
18.  Scott Sharp         Panoz-Honda     1:34.9094 + 4.2406
19.  Jeff Bucknum        Dallara-Chevy   1:35.4310 + 4.7622
20.  Ed Carpenter        Dallara-Toyota  1:37.9000 + 7.2312

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