Franchitti edges Matos in practice

Fresh from winning at the similarly short Iowa track a week ago, Ganassi driver Franchitti produced a 16.2518s lap with three minutes to go, edging ahead of Matos by 0.0313s.

Matos had previously jumped to the top spot amid a flurry of quick laps after a yellow for a track inspection a quarter of an hour from the end of the session. Benefiting from having tested at the track with both current team Luczo Dragon and Andretti Green, Matos looked set to finish the afternoon in front until Franchitti's late run.

Franchitti's team-mate Scott Dixon took third, ahead of Penske's Helio Castroneves.

Tomas Scheckter - one of the stars of the Iowa event - impressed again by taking fifth for Dreyer & Reinbold, having previously led the way in the opening half hour session for rookies and drivers outside the top ten in the championship.

HVM's EJ Viso, desperate to turn his season around having not finished a single race in 2009, took an encouraging sixth.

Emphasising his strong short oval form after taking a podium at Iowa, Hideki Mutoh (AGR) had led the way for most of the session - beating Dixon's early benchmark and then staying ahead until Matos hit the front. But with so many improvements in the last 15 minutes, Mutoh was pushed right back to eighth, behind Panther's Dan Wheldon, and ahead of championship leader Ryan Briscoe (Penske).

Last year's winner Tony Kanaan had the most frustrating session of all, completing just 13 laps before a fuel leak forced him to park his AGR Dallara-Honda. He was classified 15th.

This was the sole practice session before qualifying, which takes place later this afternoon, with an additional half hour of floodlit running scheduled for tonight in preparation for the Saturday night race.

Pos  Driver             Team                 Time      Gap
 1.  Dario Franchitti   Ganassi              16.2518s
 2.  Raphael Matos      Luczo Dragon         16.2831s  + 0.0313s
 3.  Scott Dixon        Ganassi              16.3570s  + 0.1052s
 4.  Helio Castroneves  Penske               16.3618s  + 0.1100s
 5.  Tomas Scheckter    Dreyer & Reinbold    16.3695s  + 0.1177s
 6.  EJ Viso            HVM                  16.3716s  + 0.1198s
 7.  Dan Wheldon        Panther              16.4355s  + 0.1837s
 8.  Hideki Mutoh       Andretti Green       16.4515s  + 0.1997s
 9.  Ryan Briscoe       Penske               16.5035s  + 0.2517s
10.  Marco Andretti     Andretti Green       16.5134s  + 0.2616s
11.  Danica Patrick     Andretti Green       16.5388s  + 0.2870s
12.  Graham Rahal       Newman/Haas/Lanigan  16.6002s  + 0.3484s
13.  Justin Wilson      Coyne                16.6295s  + 0.3777s
14.  Mike Conway        Dreyer & Reinbold    16.6315s  + 0.3797s
15.  Tony Kanaan        Andretti Green       16.6526s  + 0.4008s
16.  Robert Doornbos    Newman/Haas/Lanigan  16.6637s  + 0.4119s
17.  Mario Moraes       KV                   16.7620s  + 0.5102s
18.  Ryan Hunter-Reay   Foyt                 16.8310s  + 0.5792s
19.  Ed Carpenter       Vision               17.0220s  + 0.7702s
20.  Jaques Lazier      3G                   17.6426s  + 1.3908s