Dixon fastest at Phoenix

The Ganassi Racing ace lapped the one-mile oval in 178.715mph yesterday (Thursday), lapping 0.2mph faster than the pole time set by Tony Kanaan for last year's race at Phoenix. Sam Hornish Jr set the second fastest time (178.224mph), with Helio Castroneves third quickest (177.367mph).

Drivers and teams had difficulty finding the right combination with the new Dallara and Panoz G Force chassis, which offer less down force and utilize a hole in the body work behind the air intake to reduce horsepower.

"It's a very small window," said Dixon, who completed 339 laps in the day. "We tried different things during the day, and sometimes you'd hit a spot where it really was no good. That's where a lot of guys are having problems. With less downforce, the cars aren't as easy to work with. But we've got a bit of a handle on it now."

Hornish said: "We're real happy with the car handles as far as race set-up goes. It just remains to be seen what happens. It's always a guessing game until it's actually time to go race."

Minutes after the test, both Dixon and Castroneves, along with Scott Sharp, left Phoenix to board a charter flight to Daytona, where they'll participate in an IROC race tonight.

"Maybe I shouldn't give [Dixon] any advice," joked Castroneves, who competed in IROC last season. "Otherwise he's not going to get out of there safely. Hopefully on the plane tonight, we'll all make an agreement to stick together through the whole race."

After testing an IRL machine, Dixon found the IROC stock car difficult to master. "They're pretty slow," he said. "They're pretty loose, too. They went to a new tyre, so they're hard to handle. I think you'll see a lot of crashes, unfortunately."