Friday practice: Infiniti one-two

Cheever has good reason to like the new 1.5-mile oval after posting the fastest speed in Friday's combined practice sessions with a lap at 216.973 miles per hour in a Dallara-Infiniti for Sunday's Ameristar Casino 500 IRL race. Robbie Buhl, the only other Infiniti driver in the series, was second quickest at 216.623 mph in a G Force-Infiniti.

"We haven't run here before, so we had to get as much data as possible today," Cheever said. "The track is as flat as this table. This is a world-class facility. For the longest time, we always considered Texas to be our second track to Indy. I think this is going to give Texas a run for its money."

With Sunday's race already sold out, it will be one of the largest crowds to watch the IRL this season, falling behind the 400,000 fans for the 85th Indianapolis 500 and the 78,000 fans for the June 9 Casino Magic 500 at Texas Motor Speedway.

Kansas Speedway has 75,000 grandstand seats, all of them sold as part of a season-ticket package that also includes the NASCAR Winston Cup race on September 30.

Buhl believes the high heat and humidity at Richmond, Virginia last Saturday night has helped the drivers prepare for the blazing Kansas heat, which was 99 degrees Friday.

"It was hot in Richmond and you do get used to it," Buhl said. "It will be a factor how it affects the Firestone tyres with the track temperatures. From a driver's standpoint, it's supposed to be hot in Kansas City the week of July 4. Coming into this, we knew this. We didn't expect it to be the hottest weekend of the summer here. The biggest concern is what is the track temperature and how will it coincide with tyre management."

Mark Dismore was the fastest Oldsmobile Aurora driver with a lap at 214.9325 mph in a Dallara chassis.

"I love the track," Dismore said. "I think it has the capability of running two wide in the turns. We're just struggling a little bit. The track temperature was 150 degrees and we're on a green race track."

Eliseo Salazar's 214.899 mph in a Dallara-Aurora and Scott Sharp's 214.720 in a Dallara-Aurora rounded out the top five. There are 22 cars entered for this race with qualifications set for 4:15 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time on Saturday.