Franchitti takes Texas pole

In the first time driving under lights, Franchitti knocked Indy 500 winner Buddy Rice off the number one spot on Thursday night to win the pole position for the Bombardier 500k, the fifth race of the 16-race IRL IndyCar Series season. It was the first pole position for Franchitti since 2002, when he had one pole while finishing fourth in the final CART standings.

"Our first run this afternoon wasn't very good at all," Franchitti said. "But we made some changes, and from that point we were very confident with the car. We were concerned with the conditions, being dark. We knew what was going to work. We just went out there and stood on it. It was great."

It also was Franchitti's first qualifying run at Texas Motor Speedway. He practiced at the 1.5-mile high-banked tri-oval with CART in April 2001 before the event was cancelled when drivers experienced vertigo and nausea.

Perhaps most remarkable, though, was Franchitti's rapid acclimation to night racing. A 31-year-old veteran of eight seasons of Indy-style racing, Franchitti meshed perfectly with the track's lighting system, which can be unnerving for first-timers.

"This is a day of firsts," Franchitti said. "It took a little getting used to. The first couple of warm-up laps under the lights were a slightly different visual, but after that it was fun."

Rice, who backed up his pole position at Indy with a $1.7-million win in the race, held P1 at Texas for much of the night. The fifth driver on the track, Rice was clocked at 208.755mph in the Rahal Letterman Racing Honda-powered Panoz G Force.

The lap held up through 14 challengers until Franchitti fired up the Andretti Green Racing Dallara-Honda and posted a lap of 24.9894 seconds (209.609mph). It was the only lap above 209mph and below 25 seconds.

"This is definitely my kind of racing," Franchitti joked of Saturday evening's start. "You get up at mid-day. You get some extra sleep. Hopefully we can have more of these night-time races."

Franchitti's AGR team-mate, Tony Kanaan, will start third after a lap of 208.511 mph in the No. 11 AGR Dallara-Honda. Kosuke Matsuura, the Indy 500 rookie of the year and the last car on the track Thursday, will start fourth.

With the notorious pack racing of IRL events at Texas, qualifying isn't considered as important as it is at other events. "I don't think qualifying means much for the race," Kanaan said. "My best start here was ninth, but I finished second last year."

With another AGR driver, Bryan Herta, among the top five, Honda-powered cars continued their dominance over Toyota and Chevrolet. Honda swept the top five positions for Saturday's race after taking the top seven starting and finishing positions at Indianapolis. Honda has taken all five IRL poles this season.

"Over the off season, Honda did its homework," Rice said. "But the race is going to be a serious chess game. There are 10 or 12 guys who can win out there. You just have to have everything come together."

Helio Castroneves turned in the fastest lap by a Toyota and sixth-best overall at 207.994mph. Ed Carpenter had the best lap by a Chevy, seventh overall at 207.855. Castroneves' lap was surprisingly quick, considering the next-fastest Toyota was Marlboro Team Penske team-mate Sam Hornish Jr. at 207.314mph (11th-fastest).

Following Carpenter on the grid are Tomas Scheckter, Adrian Fernandez and Mark Taylor. Defending IRL champion Scott Dixon had an uncharacteristically slow run that put him 16th. Alex Barron's gearbox broke during his warm-up, leaving him in the final starting spot.